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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/britishnavyinbat01poll 



THE BRITISH NAVY 
IN BATTLE 

BY 
ARTHUR H. POLLEN 




ILLUSTRATED 



Garden City New York 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1919 



-> 



6* 



COPYRIGHT, 1 9 19, BY 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF 

TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 



JAH 29 1919 
CI. A 5 11 4 4 9 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



I. A Greeting. By Way of Dedication . . 3 

II. A Retrospect 11 

The First Crisis 14 

The Second Crisis 20 

The Third Crisis 22 

The Fourth Crisis . 25 

The New Era 28 

III. Sea Fallacies: A Plea for First Principles 33 

IV. Some Root Doctrines 48 

V. Elements of Sea Force 61 

VI. The Actions ^ . . 79 

VII. Naval Gunnery, Weapons and Technique 93 

Fire Control 96 

The Torpedo in Battle 103 

VIII. The Action that Never Was Fought . . 108 

IX. The Destruction of Koenigsberg . . . . 119 

The First Attempt ' 126 

Success . . 134 

A Problem in Control 142 

X. Capture of H. I. G. M. S. Emden ... 152 

XI. The Career of Von Spee. I 165 

Coronel 172 

XII. Battle of the Falkland Islands. I: 

The Career of Von Spee II . . . . 180 

A. Preliminary Movements . . . . 182 

XIII. Battle of the Falkland Islands. II: 

B. Action with the Armoured Cruisers 191 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. Battle of the Falkland Islands. Ill : 

C. Action with the Light Cruisers . 201 

D. Action with the Enemy Transports 210 
XV. Battle of the Falkland Islands. IV: 

Strategy — Tactics — Gunnery . . . 213 

British Strategy 215 

The Tactics of the Battle . . . . 219 

A Point in Naval Ethics 230 

XVI. The Heligoland Affair 232 

The North Sea 240 

XVII. The Action Off the Dogger Bank. I . . 245 

XVIII. The Dogger Bank. II 251 

XIX. The Battle of Jutland: 

I. North Sea Strategies 267 

XX. The Battle of Jutland {continued)'. 

II. The Urgency of a Decision . . . 283 
XXI. The Battle of Jutland {continued) : 

III. The Distribution of Forces . . 294 
XXII. The Battle of Jutland {continued): 

IV. The Second Phase 307 

XXIII. The Battle of Jutland {continued) : 

V. The Three Objectives . . . . 315 
The Tactical Plans: 

Admiral Scheer's Tactics . . . . 317 

Sir David Beatty's Tactics . . . 324 

Sir John Jellicoe's Tactics . . . 326 

XXIV. The Battle of Jutland {continued): 

VI. The Course of the Action . . . 330 

The German Retreat 333 

The Night Actions and the Events 

of June 1 335 

XXV. Zeebrugge and Ostend 341 

Strategical Object 342 

Sir Roger Keyes's Tactics . . . . 345 

Attack on the Mole 352 

Moral Effect 3^3 



LIST OF LINE CUTS 



PACE 



Big guns more accurate at long range, because more 

regular 94 

Big guns need less accurate range-finding, because 

the danger space is greater . 95 

Range-finding by bracket 97 

The crux of sea fighting, changes of course and speed 

produce an irregularly changing range ... 98 

In this sketch the black silhouette shows the posi- 
tion at the moment the torpedo is fired; the 
white silhouette the position the ship has 
reached when the torpedo meets it 107 

Plan of Sydney and Emden in action 158 

Plan of the action between the British battle-cruisers 

and the German armoured cruisers .... 199 

Plan of action between Kent and Nurnberg, and of 

that between Cornwall and Glasgow and Leipzig 207 

The action off Heligoland up to the intervention of 
Commodore Goodenough's Light Cruiser Squad- 
ron 235 

The action off Heligoland. The course of the battle- 
cruisers 239 

The Dogger Bank Affair. Diagram to illustrate the 
character of the engagement up to the disable- 
ment of Lion 249 



Vll 



viii LIST OF LINE CUTS 

PAGE 

The official plan of the Battle of Jutland. Note 
that the course of the Grand Fleet is not shown 
to be "astern" of the battle-cruisers, but parallel 
to their track 295 

Position of the opposing fleets at 3:30 p.m. . . . 298 

The first phase; from Von Hipper's coming into 

view, until his juncture with Admiral Scheer . 301 

The second phase; Beatty engages the combined 
German Fleet, and draws it toward the Grand 
Fleet 309 

Sketch plan of the action from 6 p. m. when the 
Grand Fleet prepared to deploy, till 6:50 when 
Admiral Scheer delivered his first massed tor- 
pedo attack 332 

Jutland Diagrams. Third phase ... at end of book 



THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 



THE BRITISH NAVY 
IN BATTLE 

CHAPTER I 

A Greeting by Way of Dedication 

Xmasy 191 5. 
To the Admirals, Captains, Officers and Men of the Royal 
Navy and of the Royal Naval Reserve : 

To the men of the merchant service and the landsmen 
who have volunteered for work afloat: 

To all who are serving or fighting for their country at 
sea: 

To all naval officers who are serving — much against 
their will — on land : 

Greetings, good wishes and gratitude from all landsmen. 

We do not wish you a Merry Christmas, for to none of 
us, neither to you at sea nor to us on land, can Christmas 
be a merry season now. Nor, amid so much misery and 
sorrow, does it seem, at first sight, reasonable to carry the 
conventional phrase further and wish you a Happy New 
Year. But happiness is a different thing from merriment. 
In the strictest sense of the word you are happy in your 
great task, and we doubly and trebly happy in the security 
that your great duties, so finely discharged, confer. So, 
after all it is a Happy New Year that we wish you. 

If you could have your wish, you of the Grand Fleet — 

3 



4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

well, we can guess what it would be. It is that the war 
would so shape itself as to force the enemy fleet out, and 
make it put its past work and its once high hopes to the 
test against the power which you command and use with 
all the skill your long vigil and faithful service have made 
so singly yours to-day. And in one sense — and for your 
sakes, because your glory would be somehow lessened if it 
did not happen — we too could wish that this could happen. 
But we wish it only because you do. Although you do not 
grumble, though we hear no fretful word, we realize how 
wearing and how wearying your ceaseless watch must be. 
It is a watchfulness that could not be what it is, unless you 
hoped, and indeed more than hoped, expected that the 
enemy must early or late prove your readiness to meet 
him, either seeking you, or letting you find him, in a High 
Seas fight of ship to ship and man to man. We, like you, 
look forward to such a time with no misgiving as to the re- 
sult, though, unlike you, we dread the price in noble lives 
and gallant ships that even an overwhelming victory may 
cost. 

Your hopes and expectation for this dreadful, but glori- 
ous, end to all your work do not date from August, eigh- 
teen months ago. When as little boys you went to the 
Britannia, you went drawn there by the magic of the sea. 
It was not the sea that carries the argosies of fabled wealth; 
it was not the sea of yachts and pleasure boats. It was the 
sea that had been ruled so proudly by your fathers that 
drew you. And you, as the youngest of the race, went to 
it as the heirs to a stern and noble heritage. So, almost 
from the nursery have you been vowed to a life of hardship 
and of self-denial, of peril and of poverty — a fitting appren- 
ticeship for those who were destined to bear themselves so 
nobly in the day of strain and battle. To the mission con- 



A GREETING BY WAY OF DEDICATION 5 

fided to you in boyhood you have been true in youth and 
true in manhood. So that when war came it was not war 
that surprised you, but you that surprised war. 

When the war came, you from the beginning did your 
work as simply, as skilfully, and as easily as you had al- 
ways done it. Not one of you ever met the enemy, how- 
ever inferior the force you might be in, but you fought him 
resolutely and to the end. Twice and only twice was he 
engaged to no purpose. Pegasus, disabled and outraged, 
fell nobly, and the valiant Cradock faced overwhelming 
odds because duty pointed to fighting. Should the cer- 
tainty of death stand between him and that which England 
expects of every seaman ? There could only be one answer. 
In no other case has an enemy ship sought action with a 
British ship. In every other case the enemy has been 
forced to fight, and made to fly. It was so from the first. 
When two small cruisers penetrated the waters of Heligo- 
land with a flotilla of destroyers, the enemy kept his High 
Seas Fleet, his fast cruisers, and his well-gunned armoured 
ships in the ignoble safety of his harbours and his canal. 
He left, to his shame, his small cruisers to fight their battle 
alone. Tyrwhitt and Blount might, and should, have 
been the objects of overwhelming attack. But the Ger- 
mans were not to be drawn into battle. The ascendancy 
that you gained in the first three weeks of war you have 
maintained ever since. Three times under the cover of 
darkness or of fog, the greater, faster units of the German 
force have — in a frenzy of fearful daring — ventured to 
cross or enter the sea that once was known as the German 
Ocean. Three times they have known no alternative but 
precipitate flight to the place from which they came. 

Not once has a single merchant ship bound for England 
been stopped or taken by an enemy ship in home waters. 



6 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

But fifty-six out of eight thousand were overtaken in dis- 
tant seas. It has been yours to shepherd and protect 
the vast armies we have sent out from England, and so 
completely have you done it that not a single transport or 
supply ship has been impeded between this country and 
France. From the first there has not been, nor can there 
now ever be, the slightest threat or the remotest danger of 
these islands being invaded. Indeed, so utter and com- 
plete has been your work that the phrase "Command of the 
Sea" has a new meaning. The sea holds no danger for us. 
Allied to other great land powers, we find ourselves able 
and compelled to become a great land power also. The 
army of four millions is thus not the least of your creations. 
So thorough is your work that Britain stands to-day on 
a pinnacle of power unsurpassed by any nation at any 
time. 

Has the completeness of your work been impaired by 
the ravages of the submarine? Its gift of invisibility has 
'seemed to some so mystic a thing that its powers become 
magnified. Because it clearly sometimes might strike a 
deadly blow, it was thought that it always could so strike, 
till madness was piled upon madness, and it seemed as if 
the very laws of force had been upset, and ships and guns 
things obsolete and of no use. But you have always 
known — and we at last are learning — that this is idle talk, 
and that as things were and as they are, so must they al- 
ways be; and that sea-power rests as it always has, and as 
it always will, with the largest fleet of the strongest ships, 
and with big guns well directed and truly aimed. 

It did not take you long to learn the trick of the sub- 
marine in war, and had things been ordered differently, 
you might have learned much of what you know in the 
years of peace. But you learned its tricks so well that it 



A GREETING BY WAY OF DEDICATION 7 

has failed completely to hurt the Navy or the Army which 
the Navy carries over the sea, and has found its only suc- 
cess in attacking unarmed merchant ships. These are 
only unarmed because the people of Christendom had 
never realized that any of its component nations could 
turn to barbarism, piracy, and even murder in war. It 
would have been so easy, had this utter lapse into devilry 
been expected, to have armed every merchant ship — and 
then where would the submarine have been? But even 
with the merchantmen unarmed, the submarine success 
has been greatly thwarted by your splendid ingenuity and 
resource, your sleepless guard, your ceaseless activity, and 
the buccaneers of a new brutality have been made to pay 
a bloody toll. 

Take it for all in all, never in the history of war has 
organized force accomplished its purpose at so small a cost 
in unpreventable loss, or with such utter thoroughness, or 
in face of such unanticipated difficulties. 

It was inevitable that there should be some failures. 
Not every opportunity has been seized, nor every chance 
of victory pushed to the utmost. Who can doubt that 
there are a hundred points of detail in which your material, 
the methods open to you, the plans which tied you, might 
have been more ample, better adapted to their purpose, 
more closely and wisely considered? For when so much 
had changed, the details of naval war had to differ greatly 
from the anticipation. In the long years of peace — that 
seem so infinitely far behind us now — you had for a gene- 
ration and a half been administered by a department almost 
entirely civilian in its spirit and authority. It was a con- 
trol that had to make some errors in policy, in provision, 
in selection. But your skill counter-balanced bad policy 
when it could ; your resources supplied the defects of ma- 



8 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

terial; too few of you were of anything but the highest 
merit for many errors of selection to be possible. 

And the nation understood you very little. Your 
countrymen, it is true, paid you the lip service of admitting 
that you alone stood between the nation and defeat if war 
should come. But war seemed so unreal and remote to 
them, that it was only a few that took the trouble to ask 
what more you needed for war than you already had. 

And. you were so absorbed in the grinding toil of your 
daily work to be articulate in criticism; too occupied in 
trying to get the right result with indifferent means — be- 
cause the right means cost too much and could not be 
given to you — to strive for better treatment; too wholly 
wedded to your task to be angry that your task was not 
made more easy for you. Hence you took civilian domi- 
nation, civilian ignorance, and civilian indifference to the 
things that matter, all for granted, and submitted to them 
dumbly and humbly, as you submitted silent and unpro- 
testing to your other hardships; you were resigned to 
this being so; and were resigned without resentment. If, 
then, the plans were sometimes wrong, if you and your 
force were at other times cruelly misused, if the methods 
available to you were often inadequate, it was not your 
fault — unless, indeed, it be a fault to be too loyal and too 
proud to make complaint. 

If we took little trouble to understand you, we took 
still less to pay and praise you. There is surely no other 
profession in the world which combines so hard a life, such 
great responsibilities, such pitiful remuneration. But 
small as the pay is, we seize eagerly every chance to lessen 
it. If we waste our money, we do not waste it on you. 
But we fully expect you to spend your money in our ser- 
vice. The naval officer's pay is calculated to meet his ex- 



A GREETING BY WAY OF DEDICATION 9 

penses in time of peace. Now a very large proportion of 
the pay of cadets, midshipmen, sub-lieutenants, and lieu- 
tenants necessarily goes in uniform and clothes. The 
life of a uniform can be measured by the sea work done by 
the wearer. Sea work in war is — what shall we say? — 
three to six times what it is in peace. But we do nothing 
to help young officers to meet these very ugly attacks on 
their very exiguous pay. We do not even distribute the 
prize money that the Fleet has earned. 

Some day, when this war is won, it may be realized that 
it has been won because there is a great deal more water 
than land upon the world, and because the British Fleet 
commands the use of all the water, and the enemy the use 
of only a tiny fraction of all the land. If France can en- 
dure, and if Russia can "come again"; if Great Britain has 
the time to raise the armies that will turn the scale; if the 
Allies can draw upon the world for the metal and food 
that make victory — and waiting for victory — possible; 
if the effort to shatter European civilization and to rob 
the Western world of its Christian tradition fails, it is be- 
cause our enemies counted upon a war in which England 
would not fight. Some day, then, we shall see what we 
and all the world owe to you. 

We may then be tempted to be generous and pay you 
perhaps a living wage for your work, and not cut it down 
to a half or a third if there is no ship in which to employ 
you. And if you lose your health and strength in the na- 
tion's service, we may pay you a pension proportionate to 
the value of your work, and the dangers and responsibili- 
ties that you have shouldered, and to the strenuous, self- 
sacrificing lives that you have led, for our sakes. We may 
do more. We may see to it that honours are given to you 
in something like the same proportion that they are given, 



io THE BRITISHiNAVY IN, BATTLE 

say, to civilians and to the Army. We may do more still. 
We may realize that to get the best work out of you, you 
must be ordered and governed and organized by your- 
selves. 

But then again we may do nothing of the kind. We 
may continue to treat you as we have always treated you; 
and if we do, there is at any rate this bright side to it. 
You will continue to serve us as you have always served 
us, working for nothing, content so you are allowed to re- 
main the pattern and mirror of chivalry and knightly ser- 
vice, and to wear "the iron fetters" of duty as your noblest 
decoration. 



CHAPTER II 

A Retrospect 

August, 1 91 8. 
In looking back over the last four years, the sharpest 
outlines in the retrospect are the ups and downs of hopes 
and fears. Indeed, so acutely must everyone bear these 
alternations in mind, that to remark on them is almost to 
incur the guilt of commonplace. For they illustrate the 
tritest of all the axioms of war. It is human to err — and 
every error has to be paid for. If the greatest general is 
he who makes the fewest mistakes, then the making of 
some mistakes must be common to all generals. The 
rises and reversals of fortune on all the fronts are of neces- 
sity the indices of right or wrong strategy. These trans- 
formations have been far more numerous on land than at 
sea, and locally have in many instances been seemingly 
final. Thus to take a few of many examples, Serbia, Mon- 
tenegro, and Russia are almost completely eliminated as 
factors; our effort in the Dardanelles had to be acknowl- 
edged as a complete failure. But at no stage [ was any 
victory or defeat of so overwhelming and wholesale a na- 
ture as to promise an immediate decision. The retreat 
from Mons, Gallipoli, Neuve Chapelle, Hulloch, Kut — the 
British Army could stand all of these, and much more. 
France never seemed to be beaten, whatever the strain. 
Even after the defection of Russia, a German victory 
seemed impossible on land. Never once did either side 
see defeat, immediate and final, threatened. A right 

11 



i2 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

calculation of all the forces engaged may have shown a 
discerning few where the final preponderance lay. The 
point is that, despite extraordinary and numerous vicis- 
situdes, there never was a moment when the land war 
seemed settled once and for all. 

This has not been the case at sea. The transformations 
here have been fewer; but they have been extreme. For 
two and a half years the sea-power of the Allies appeared 
both so overwhelmingly established and so abjectly ac- 
cepted by the enemy, that it seemed incredible that this 
condition could ever alter materially. Yet between the 
months of February and May, 1917, the change was so 
abrupt and so terrific that for a period it seemed as if the 
enemy had established a form of superiority which must, 
at a date that was not doubtful, be absolutely fatal to the 
alliance. And again, in six months' time, the situation 
was transformed, so that sea-power, on which the only 
hope of Allied victory has ever rested was once more 
assured. 

Thus, after the most anxious year in our history, we 
came back to where we started. This nation, France, 
Italy, and America no less, we have all returned to that 
absolute and unwavering confidence in the navy as the 
chief anchor of all Allied hopes. Not that the navy had 
ever failed to justify that confidence in the past. There 
was no task to which any ship was ever set that had not 
been tackled in that heroic spirit of self-sacrifice which we 
have been taught to expect from our officers and men; 
there had never been a recorded case of a single ship declin- 
ing action with the enemy. There were scores of cases in 
which a smaller and weaker British force had attacked a 
larger and stronger German. Ships had been mined, 
torpedoed, sunk in battle, and the men on board had gone 



A RETROSPECT 13 

to their death smiling, cairn, and unperturbed. If hero- 
ism, goodwill, a blind passion for duty could have won the 
war, if devotion and zeal in training, patient submission 
to discipline, a fiery spirit of enterprise could have won — 
then we never should have had a single disappointment at 
sea. The traditions of the past, the noble character of the 
seamen of to-day — we hoped for a great deal, nor ever was 
our hope disappointed. And when the time of danger 
came, when our tonnage was slipping away at more 
than six million tons a year, so that it was literally pos- 
sible to calculate how long the country could endure 
before surrender, it never occurred to the most panic- 
stricken to blame the navy for our danger. The nation 
saw quite clearly where the fault lay, and the Govern- 
ment, sensitive to the popular feeling, at last took the right 
course. 

But it was a course that should have been taken long 
before. For, though the purposes for which sea-power 
exists seemed perfectly secure and never in danger at all 
till little more than a year ago, yet there had been a series 
of unaccountable miscarriages of sea-power. Battles 
were fought in which the finest ships in the world, armed 
with the best and heaviest guns, commanded by officers 
of unrivalled skill and resolution, and manned by officers 
and crews perfectly trained, and acting in battle with just 
the same swift, calm exactitude that they had shown in 
drill — and yet the enemy was not sunk and victory was not 
won. Though, seemingly, we possessed overwhelming 
numbers, the enemy seemed to be able to flout us, first in 
one place and then in another, and we seemed powerless 
to strike back. Almost since the war began we kept run- 
ning into disappointments which our belief in and knowl- 
edge of the navy convinced us were gratuitous disappoint- 



i 4 THE BRITISH NAVYIN BATTLE 

ments. A rapid survey of the chief events since August, 
1 91 4, will illustrate what I mean. 

THE FIRST CRISIS 

The opening of the war at sea was in every respect 
auspicious for the Allies. By what looked like a happy 
accident, the British Navy had just been mobilized on an 
unprecedented scale. It was actually in process of return- 
ing to its normal establishment when the international 
crisis became acute, and, by a dramatic stroke, it was kept 
at war strength and the main fleet sent to its war stations 
before the British ultimatum was despatched to Berlin. 
The effect was instantaneous. Within a week transports 
were carrying British troops into France and trade was 
continuing its normal course, exactly as if there were no 
German Navy in existence. The German sea service 
actually went out of existence. Before a month was over 
a small squadron of battle-cruisers raided the Bight be- 
tween Heligoland and the German harbours, sank there 
small cruisers and half-a-dozen destroyers, challenged the 
High Seas Fleet to battle, and came away without the 
enemy having attempted to use his capital ships to defend 
his small craft or to pick up the glove so audaciously 
thrown down. The mere mobilization of the British 
Fleet seemed to have paralyzed the enemy, and it looked 
as if our ability to control sea communications was not 
only surprisingly complete, but promised to be enduring. 
The nation's confidence in the Navy had been absolute 
from the beginning, and it seemed as if that confidence 
could not be shaken. 

Before another two months had passed we had run into 
one of those crises which were to recur not once, but again 
and again. During September an accumulation of errors 



A RETROSPECT 15 

came to light. The enormity of the political and naval 
blunder which had allowed Goeben and Breslau to slip 
through our fingers in the Mediterranean, and so bring 
j Turkey into the war against us, at last become patent. 
There was no blockade. There were the raids which 
Emden and Karlsruhe were making on our trade in the 
Indian Ocean and between the Atlantic and the Caribbean. 
The enemy's submarines had sunk some of our cruisers — 
three in succession on a single day and in the same area. 
Then rumours gained ground that the Grand Fleet, driven 
from its anchorages by submarines, was fugitive, hiding 
now in one remote loch, now in another, and losing one of 
its greatest units in its flight. For a moment it looked as 
if the old warnings, that surface craft were impotent 
against under-water craft, had suddenly been proved true. 
Von Spee, with a powerful pair of armoured cruisers, was 
known to be at large. As a final insult, German battle- 
cruisers crossed the North Sea, and battered and ravaged 
the defenceless inhabitants of a small seaport town on the 
east coast. Something was evidently wrong. But no- 
body seemed to know quite what it was. 

The crisis was met by a typical expedient. We are a 
nation of hero-worshippers and proverbially loyal to our 
favourites long after they have lost any title to our favour. 
In the concert-room, in the cricket-field, on the stage, in 
Parliament — in every phase of life — it is the old and tried 
friend in whom we confide, even if we have conveniently 
to overlook the fact that he has not only been tried, but 
convicted. This blind loyalty is, perhaps, amiable as a 
weakness, and almost peculiar to this nation. But we 
have another which is neither amiable nor peculiar. We 
hate having our complacency disturbed by being proved 
to be wrong and, rather than acknowledge our fault, are 



16 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

easily persuaded that the cause of our misfortune is some 
hidden and malign influence. And so in October, 1914, 
the explanation of things being wrong at sea was suddenly 
found to be quite simple. It was that the First Sea Lord 
of the Admiralty was of German birth. With the evil eye 
gone the spell would be removed. And so a most accom- 
plished officer retired, and Lord Fisher, now almost a 
mythological hero, took his place. 

Within very few weeks the scene suffered 

. . . a sea change. 

Into something rich and strange. 

Von Spee was left but a month in which to enjoy his 
triumph over Cradock; Emden was defeated and captured 
by Sydney; Karlsruhe vanished as by enchantment from 
the sea; and Von Hipper's battle-cruisers, going once too 
often near the British coast, had been driven in ignomini- 
ous flight across the North Sea and paid for their temerity 
by the loss of Blucher. Three months of the Fisher- 
Churchill regime had seemingly put the Navy on a pin- 
nacle that even the most sanguine — and the most ignorant 
— had hardly dared to hope for in the early days. The 
spectacle, in August, of the transports plying between 
France and England, as securely as the motor-buses be- 
tween Fleet Street and the Fulham Road, had been a 
tremendous proof of confidence in sea-power. The unac- 
cepted challenge at Heligoland had told a tale. The 
British fleet had indeed seemed unchallengeable. But 
the justification of our confidence was, after all, based 
only on the fact that the enemy had not disputed it. It 
was a negative triumph. But the capture of Emden, the 
obliteration of Von Spee, the uncamouflaged flight of Von 



A RETROSPECT 17 

Hipper, here were things positive, proofs of power in ac- 
tion, the meaning of which was patent to the simplest. 
No man in his senses could pretend that our troubles in 
October had not been attributed to their right origin, nor 
that the right remedy for them had been found and ap- 
plied. 

There was but one cloud on the horizon. The subma- 
rine — despite the loss of Hogue, Cressy, Ahoukir, Hawk, 
Hermes, and Niger, and the disturbing rumours that the 
fleet's bases were insecure — had been a failure as an agent 
for the attrition of our main sea forces. The loss of For-' 
midable, that clouded the opening of the year, had not 
restored its prestige. But Von Tirpitz had made an omi- 
nous threat. The submarine might have failed against 
naval ships. It certainly would not fail, he said, against 
trading ships. He gave the world fair warning that at 
the right moment an under-water blockade of the British 
Isles would be proclaimed; then woe to all belligerents or 
neutrals that ventured into those death-doomed waters. 
The naval writers were not very greatly alarmed. For 
four months, after all, trading ships — turned into trans- 
ports — had used the narrow waters of the Channel as if the 
submarines were no threat at all. Yet, on pre-war reason- 
ing, it was precisely in narrow waters crowded with traffic 
that under-water war should have been of greatest effect. 
These transports and these narrow waters were the ideal 
victims and the ideal field, and coast and harbour defence 
and the prevention of invasion, by common consent, the 
obvious and indeed the supreme functions the submarine 
would be called upon to discharge. From a military point 
of view the landing of British troops in France was but 
the first stage towards an invasion of Germany and, from 
a naval point of view, it looked as if to defend the French 



>8 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE;, 

ports from being entered by British ships was just as 
clearly the first objective of the German submarine as the 
defence of any German port. Now six months of war had 
shown that, if they had tried to stop the transports, the 
submarines had been thwarted. Means and methods had 
evidently been found of preventing their attack or parry- 
ing it when made. Was it. not obvious that it could be no 
more than a question of extending these methods to mer- 
chant shipping at large to turn the greater threat to futil- 
ity ? It was this reasoning that, in January and February, 
made it easy for the writers to stem any tendency of the 
public to panic, and when, towards the end of February, 
the First Lord addressed Parliament on the subject, and 
dealt with the conscienceless threat of piracy with a placid 
and defiant confidence, all were justified in thinking that 
the naval critics had been right. 

And so the beginning of the submarine campaign, 
though somewhat disconcerting, caused no wide alarm. An 
initial success was expected. It would take time to build 
the destroyers and the convoying craft on the scale that 
was called for, and so to organize the trade that the attack 
must be narrowed to protected focal points. And as ab- 
solute secrecy was maintained, both as to our actual de- 
fensive methods and as to our preparations for the future, 
there was neither the occasion nor the material for ques- 
tioning whether the serene contentment of Whitehall was 
rightly founded. 

Meantime, as we have seen, success had justified the 
solution of the October crisis. The attempt to probe 
deeper and to get at the cause of things was a thankless 
task. Those who could see beneath the surface could not 
fail to note in December and January that, while an ex- 
uberant optimism had become the mark of the British 



A RETROSPECT 19 

attitude towards the war at sea, a movement curiously 
parallel to it was going forward in Germany. The shifts 
to which the Grand Fleet had been put by the defenceless 
state of its harbours, though rigidly excluded from the 
British Press, has been triumphantly exploited in the Ger- 
man. Hence, when the enemy's only oversea squadron 
was annihilated by Sir Doveton Sturdee, his Press re- 
sponded with an outcry on the cowardice of the British 
Fleet that, while glad to overwhelm an inferior force 
abroad, dared not show itself in the North Sea. And, as 
if to prove the charge, Whitby and the Hartlepools were 
forthwith bombarded by a force we were unable to bring 
to action while returning from this exploit. The enemy 
naval writers surpassed themselves after this. And it 
looked so certain that the German Higher Command 
might itself become hypnotized by such talk that, before 
the New Year, it seemed prudent to note these phenomena 
and warn the public that we might be challenged to action 
after all, of the kind of action the enemy would dare us to, 
and what the problems were that such an action would 
present. And in particular it seemed advisable to state 
explicitly that much less must be expected from naval 
guns in battle than those had hoped, whose notions were 
founded upon battle practice. A battle-cruiser ma- 
noeuvring at twenty-eight knots — instead of a canvas screen 
towed at six — mines scattered by a squadron in retreat, a 
line of retreat that would draw the pursuers into minefields 
set to trap them; the attacks on the pursuing squadrons by 
flotillas of destroyers, firing long-range torpedoes — these 
new elements would upset, it was said, all experiences of 
peace gunnery, because in peace practices it is impossible 
to provide a target of the speed which enemy ships would 
have in action, and because there had been no practice 



20 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

while executing the manoeuvres which torpedo attack 
would make compulsory in battle. 

Within a fortnight the action of the Dogger Bank was 
fought and Von Hipper's battle-cruisers were subjected to 
the fire of Sir David Beatty's Fleet from nine o'clock until 
twelve, without one being sunk or so damaged as to lose 
speed. The enemy's tactics included attacks by subma- 
rine and destroyer which had imposed the manoeuvres as 
anticipated — and the best of gunnery had failed. But 
Blilcher had been sunk; the enemy had run away; so the 
warning fell on deaf ears; the lesson of the battle was mis- 
read. Optimism reigned supreme. 

THE SECOND CRISIS 

Within a month a naval adventure of a new kind was 
embarked upon, based on the theory that if only you had 
naval guns enough, any fort against which they were di- 
rected must be pulverized as were the forts of Liege, 
Namur, Maubeuge, and Antwerp. The simplest com- 
prehension of the principles of naval gunnery would have 
shown the theory to be fallacious. It originated in the 
fertile brain of the lay Chief of the Admiralty, and though 
it would seem as if his naval advisers felt the theory to be 
wrong, none of them, in the absence of a competent and 
independent gunnery staff, could say why. And so the 
essentially military operation of forcing the passage of the 
Dardanelles was undertaken as if it were a purely naval 
operation, with the result that, just as naval success had 
never been conceivable, so now the failure of the ships 
made military success impossible also. 

It was thus we came to our second naval crisis. The 
first we had solved by putting Lord Fisher into Prince 
Louis's place. The lesson of the second seemed to be 



A RETROSPECT 21 

that there was only one mistake that could be made with 
the navy and that was for the Government to ask it to do 
anything. Mr. Churchill, as King Stork, had taken the 
initiative. Lord Fisher, the naval superman, had not 
been able to save us. It was clear that lay interference 
with the navy was wrong — equally clear that it would be 
wiser to leave the initiative to the enemy. And so a new 
regime began. 

But, in reality, the lessons of the first crisis and the 
second crisis were the same. To suppose that a civilian 
First Lord is bound to be mischievous if he is energetic, 
and certain to be harmless if, in administering the navy as 
an instrument of war, he is a cipher, were errors just as 
great as to suppose that a seaman with a long, loyal, and 
brilliant record in the public service had put an evil en- 
chantment over the whole British Navy because, fifty 
years before, he had been born a subject of a Power with 
which till now we had never been at war. Things went 
wrong in October, 1914, for precisely the same reasons 
that they went wrong in February, March, and April, 
191 5. The German battle-cruisers escaped at Heligoland 
for exactly the same reasons that the attempt to take the 
Dardanelles forts by naval artillery was futile. We had 
prepared for war and gone into war with no clear doctrine 
as to what war meant, because we lacked the organism 
that could have produced the doctrine in peace time, pre- 
pared and trained the Navy to a common understanding 
of it, and supplied it with plans and equipped it with 
means for their execution. What was needed in October, 
1914, was not a new First Sea Lord, but a Higher Com- 
mand charged only with the study of the principles and 
the direction of fighting. 
„ But in May, 191 5, this truth was not recognized. And 



22 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

in the next year which passed, all efforts to make this 
truth understood were without effect. And so the sub- 
marine campaign went on till it spent itself in October 
and revived again in the following March, when it was 
stopped by the threat of American intervention. The 
enemy, thwarted in the only form of sea activity that prom- 
ised him great results, found himself suddenly threat- 
ened on land and humiliated at sea, and to restore his wan- 
ing prestige, ventured out with his forces, was brought to 
battle — and escaped practically unhurt. 

The controversies to which the battle of Jutland gave 
rise will be in everyone's recollection. Another of the 
many indecisive battles with which history is full had been 
fought, and the critics established themselves in two 
camps. One side was for facing risks and sinking the 
enemy at any cost. The other would have it that so long 
as the British Fleet was unconquered it was invincible, 
and that the distinction between "invincible" and "victori- 
ous" could be neglected. After all, as Mr. Churchill told 
us, while our fleet was crushing the life breath out of Ger- 
many, the German Navy could carry on no corresponding 
attack on us; and when the other camp denounced this 
doctrine of tame defence, he retorted that victory was not 
unnecessary but that the torpedo had made it impossible. 

THE THIRD CRISIS 

Yet, within two months of the battle of Jutland, the 
submarine campaign had begun again, and, at the time of 
Mr. Churchill's rejoinder, the world was losing shipping 
at the rate of three million tons a year! As there never 
had been the least dispute that to mine the submarine in- 
to German harbours was the best, if not the only, antidote, 
never the least doubt that it was only the German Fleet 



A RETROSPECT 23 

that prevented this operation from being carried out it 
seemed strange that an ex-First Lord of the Admiralty 
should be telling the world first, that the German Fleet in 
its home bases delivered no attack on us and therefore 
need not be defeated! And, secondly, as if to clinch the 
matter and silence any doubts as to the cogency of his ar- 
gument, we were to make the best of it because victory 
was impossible. 

This utter confusion of mind was typical of the public 
attitude. If a man who had been First Lord at the most 
critical period of our history had understood events so 
little, could the man in the street know any better? 

Once more the root principles of war were urged on pub- 
lic notice. But it was already too late. Jutland, whether 
a victory, or something far less than a victory, had at any 
rate left the public in the comfortable assurance that the 
ability of the British Fleet was virtually unimpaired to 
preserve the flow of provisions, raw material, and manu- 
factures into Allied harbours and to maintain our military 
communications. But soon after the third year of the war 
began, a change came over the scene. The highest level 
that the submarine campaign had reached in the past was 
regained, and then surpassed month by month. Grad- 
ually it came to be seen that the thing might become crit- 
ical — and this though the campaign was not ruthless. Yet 
it was carried out on a larger scale and with bolder methods 
which the possession of a larger fleet of submarines made 
possible. The element of surprise in the thing was not 
that the Germans had renewed the attempt — for it was 
clear from the terms of surrender to America that they 
would renew it at their own time. The surprise was in 
its success. The public, still trusting to the attitude of 
mind induced by the critics and by the authorities in 191 5, 



24 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

had taken it for granted that the two previous campaigns 
had stopped in December, 191 5, and in March, 1916, be- 
cause of the efficiency of our counter-measures. The reve- 
lation of the autumn of 1916 was that these counter- 
measures had failed. 

It was this that brought about the third naval crisis of 
the war. Once more the old wrong remedy was tried. 
The Government and the public had learned nothing from 
the revelation that we had gone to war on the doctrine 
that the Fleet need not, and ought not, to fight the enemy, 
and were apparently unconcerned at discovering that it 
could not fight with success. And so, still not realizing 
the root cause of all our trouble, once more a remedy was 
sought by changing the chief naval adviser to the Govern- 
ment. 

But on this occasion it was not only the chief that was 
replaced, as had happened when Lord Fisher succeeded 
Prince Louis of Battenberg, and when Sir Henry Jackson 
succeeded Lord Fisher. When Admiral Jellicoe came to 
Whitehall several colleagues accompanied him from the 
Grand fleet. There was nothing approaching to a com- 
plete change of personnel, but the infusion of new blood 
was considerable. But this notwithstanding, the menace 
from the submarine grew, when ruthlessness was adopted 
as a method, until the rate of loss by April had doubled, 
trebled, and quadrupled that of the previous year. All 
the world then saw that, with shipping vanishing at the 
rate of more than a million tons a month, the period dur- 
ing which the Allies could maintain the fight against the 
Central Powers must be strictly limited. 

Thus, without having lost a battle at sea — but because 
we had failed to win one — a complete reverse in the naval 
situation was brought about. Instead of enjoying the 



A RETROSPECT 25 

complete command Mr. Churchill had spoken of, we were 
counting the months before surrender might be inevitable. 
During the ten weeks leading up to the culminating losses 
of April, a final effort was made to make the public and the 
Government realize that failure of the Admiralty to pro- 
tect the sea-borne commerce of a seagirt people was due 
less to the Government's reliance on advisers ill-equipped 
for their task, than that the task itself was beyond human 
performance, so long as the Higher Command of the Navy 
was wrongly constituted for its task. It was, of course, an 
old warning vainly urged on successive Governments year 
after year in peace time, and month after month during the 
war. Evidences of inadequate preparation of imperfect 
plans, of a wrong theory of command, of action founded 
on wrong doctrine but endorsed by authority, had all been 
numerous during the previous two and a half years. 

THE FOURTH CRISIS 

But where reason and argument had been powerless to 
prevail, the logic of facts gained the victory. At last, in 
the fourth naval crisis of the war, it was realized that 
changes in personnel at Whitehall were not sufficient, that 
changes of system were necessary. Before the end of May 
the machinery of administration was reorganized and a 
new Higher Command developed, largely on the long re- 
sisted staff principle. 

Thus, after repeated failures — not of the Fleet but of 
its directing minds in London — a complete revolution was 
effected in the command of the most important of all the 
fighting forces in the war, viz., the British Navy. It was 
actually brought about because criticism had shown that 
the old regime had first failed to anticipate and then to 
thwart a new kind of attack on sea communications — 



26 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

just as it had failed to anticipate the conditions of surface 
war. It was at last realized that two kinds of naval war 
could go on together, one almost independent of the other. 
A Power might command the surface of the sea against the 
surface force of an enemy, and do so more absolutely than 
had ever happened before, and yet see that command 
brought, for its main purposes, almost to nothing by a new 
naval force, from which, though naval ships could defend 
themselves, they seemingly could not defend the carrying 
and travelling ships, upon which the life of the nation and 
the continuance of its military effort on land depended. 
The revolution of May saved the situation. At last the 
principle of convoy, vainly urged on the old regime, was 
adopted, and within six months the rate at which ships 
were being lost was practically halved. In twelve months 
it had been reduced by sixty per cent. 

But the departure made in the summer of 1917, though 
radical as to principle, was less than half-hearted as to per- 
sons. Many of the men identified with all our previous 
failures and responsible for the methods and plans that 
have led to them, were retained in full authority. The 
mere adoption of the staff principle did indeed bring about 
an effect so singular and striking as completely to transform 
all Allied prospects. In April, defeat seemed to be a mat- 
ter of a few months only. By October it had become clear 
that the submarine could not by itself assure a German 
victory. If such extraordinary consequences could follow 
— exactly as it was predicted they must — from a change in 
system which all experience of war had proved to be essen- 
tial, why, it may be asked, was the adoption of the staff 
principle so bitterly opposed ? Partly, no doubt, because 
of the natural conservatism of men who have grown old 
and attained to high rank in a service to which they have 



A RETROSPECT 27 

given their lives in all devotion and sincerity. The singu- 
larity of the sailor's training and experience tends to make 
the naval profession both isolated and exclusive. And 
that its daily life is based upon the strictest discipline, 
that gives absolute power to the captain of a ship because 
it is necessary to hold him absolutely responsible, inevit- 
ably grafts upon this exclusiveness a respect for seniority 
which gives to its action in every field the indisputable 
finality bred of the quarter-deck habit. Thus, there was 
no place in Admiralty organization for the independent 
and expert work of junior men, because no authority could 
attach to their counsel. It is of the essence of the staff 
principle that special knowledge, sound, impartial, trained 
judgment, grasp of principle and proved powers of con- 
structive imagination, are higher titles to dictatorship in 
policy than the character and experience called for in the 
discharge of executive command. But to a service not 
bred to seeing all questions of policy first investigated, 
analyzed, and, finally, defined by a staff which necessarily 
will consist more of younger than of older men, the sugges- 
tion that the higher ranks should accept the guiding coop- 
eration of their juniors seemed altogether anarchical. The 
long resistance to the establishment of a Higher Command 
based on rational principles may be set down to these two 
elements of human psychology. 

That successive Governments failed to break down this 
conservatism must, I think, be explained by their fear of 
the hold which men of great professional reputation had 
upon the public mind and public affections. It was not- 
able, for example, that when our original troubles came to 
us at the first crisis, the Government, instead of seeking 
the help of the youngest and most accomplished of our 
admirals and captains, chose as chief advisers the oldest 



28 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

and least in touch with our modern conditions. It was, 
perhaps, the same fear of public opinion that delayed the 
completion of the 1917 reforms until the beginning of the 
next year. But, with all its defects and its limitations, 
the solution sought of the fourth sea crisis had made the 
history of the past twelve months the most hopeful of any 
since the war began. ' 

THE NEW ERA 

The period divides itself into two unequal portions. Be- 
tween June and January, 191 8, was seen the slowly grow- 
ing mastery of the submarine. The rate of loss was halved 
and the methods by which this result was achieved were 
applied as widely as possible. But in the next six or eight 
months no improvement in the position corresponding to 
that which followed in the first period was obtained. The 
explanation is simple enough. The old autocratic regime 
had not understood the nature of the new war any better 
than the nature of the old. It had from the first, under 
successive chief naval advisers, repudiated convoy as 
though it were a pestilent heresy. In June, 1917/the very 
men who, as absolutist advisers, had taken this attitude, 
were compelled to sanction the hated thing itself. It 
yielded exactly the results claimed for it, but no more. It 
was in its nature so simple and so obvious that it did not 
take long to get it into working order. It was the best 
form of defence. But defence is the weakest form of war. 
The stronger form, the offensive, needed planning and 
long preparations. In the nature of things these could 
not take effect either in six months or in twelve. Nor is it 
likely that, while the old personnel was suffered to remain 
at Whitehall, those engaged on the plans and charged with 
the preparations for this were able to work with the expe- 



A RETROSPECT 29 

dition which the situation called for. For the first six 
months after the revolution, then, little occurred to prove 
its efficiency, except the fruits of the policy which in- 
structed opinion had forced on Whitehall. But these, so 
far as the final issue of the war was concerned, were surely 
sufficient. For the losses by submarines were brought be- 
low the danger point. 

It was not until the revolution made its next step for- 
ward by the changes in personnel announced in January 
that marked progress was shown in the other fields of 
naval war. The late autumn had been marked, as it was 
fully expected, once the submarine was thwarted, by va- 
rious efforts on the part of the enemy to assert himself by 
other means at sea. A Lerwick convoy, very inadequately 
protected, was raided by fast and powerful enemy cruisers, 
and many ships sunk in circumstances of extraordinary 
barbarity. The destroyers protecting them sacrificed 
themselves with fruitless gallantry. There were ravages 
on the coast as well. Both things pointed to salient weak- 
nesses in the naval position. At the time of the third 
naval crisis at the end of 191 6, it had been pointed out 
that the repeated evidences of our inability to hold the 
enemy in the Narrow Seas ought not to be allowed to pass 
uncensured or unremedied. But the fatal habit of refus- 
ing to recognize that an old favourite had failed prevented 
any reform for a year. It was not until Sir Roger Keyes 
was appointed to the Dover Command and a new atmos- 
phere was created that remarkable departures in new 
policy were inaugurated. This policy took two forms. 
First, there was the establishment of a mine barrage from 
coast to coast across the Channel, and simultaneously 
with this, North Sea minefields stretching, one from Nor- 
wegian territorial waters almost to the Scottish foreshore, 



3 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

and another in the Kattegat, to intercept such German 
U-boats as base their activities upon the enemy's Baltic 
force. Two great minefields on such a scale as this are 
works of time. Nor can their effect upon the submarine 
campaign be expected to be seen until they are very near 
completion; but then the effect may possibly be immediate 
and overwhelming. 

Principally to facilitate the creation and maintenance of 
the barrages, a second new departure in policy was the 
organization of attacks on the German bases in Flanders. 
Of these Zeebriigge was infinitely the more important, 
because it is from here that the deep water canal runs to 
the docks and wharves of Bruges some miles inland. The 
value of Zeebriigge, robbed of the facilities for equipment 
and reparation which the Bruges docks afford, is little in- 
deed. It is little more than an anchorage and a refuge. 
To close Zeebriigge to the enemy called for an operation 
as daring and as intricate as was ever attempted. Success 
depended upon so many factors, of which the right weather 
was the least certain, that it was no wonder that the ex- 
pedition started again and again without attempting the 
blow it set out to strike. Its final complete success at 
Zeebriigge was a veritable triumph of perfect planning and 
organization and command. It came at a critical moment 
in the campaign. A month before the enemy, by his great 
attack at St. Quentin, had achieved by far the greatest 
land victory of the war. He had followed this up by fur- 
ther attacks, and seemed to add to endless resources in men 
a ruthless determination to employ them for victory. The 
British and French were driven to the defensive. Not to 
be beaten, not to yield too much ground, to exact the high- 
est price for what was yielded, this was not a very glorious 
role when the triumphs on the Somme and in Flanders of 



A RETROSPECT 



3i 



1916 and 1917 were remembered. It cannot be questioned 
that the originality, the audacity, and the success of Vice- 
Admiral Keyes' attacks on Zeebriigge and Ostend, gave 
to all the Allies just that encouragement which a dashing 
initiative alone can give. It broke the monotony of being 
always passive. 

But the new minefields, the barrages, the sealing of 
Zeebriigge, these were far from being the only fruits of the 
changes at Whitehall. A sortie by Breslau and Goeben 
from the Dardanelles, which ended in the sinking of a 
couple of German monitors and the loss of a light German 
cruiser on a minefield, directed attention sharply to the sit- 
uation in the Middle Sea. There was a manifest peril that 
the Russian Fleet might fall into German hands and make 
a junction with the Austrian Fleet at Pola. Further, the 
losses of the Allies by submarines in this sea had for long 
been unduly heavy. A visit of the First Lord to the Medi- 
terranean did much to put these things right. First steps 
were taken in reorganizing the command and, before the 
changes had advanced very far, an astounding exploit by 
two officers of the Italian Navy resulted in the destruction 
of two Austrian Dreadnoughts, and relieved the Allies of 
any grave danger in this quarter. 

Meantime, it had become known that a powerful Ameri- 
can squadron had joined the Grand Fleet, that our gallant 
and accomplished Allies had adopted British signals and 
British ways, and had become in every respect perfectly 
amalgamated with the force they had so greatly strength- 
ened. And though little was said about it in the Press, it 
was evident enough that the moral of the Lerwick convoy 
had been learned, nor was there the least doubt that the 
Grand Fleet, under the command of Sir David Beatty, had 
become an instrument of war infinitely more flexible and 



32 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

efficient than it had ever been. His plans and battle 
orders took every contingency into council so far as human 
foresight made possible. At Jutland, at the Dogger Bank, 
and in the Heligoland Bight, Admiral Beatty had shown 
his power to animate a fleet by his own fighting spirit and 
to combine a unity of action with the independent initia- 
tive of his admirals, simply because he had inspired all of 
them with a common doctrine of fighting. Under such 
auspices there could be little doubt that our main forces in 
northern waters were ready for battle with a completeness 
and an elasticity that left nothing to chance. 

But if we are to look for the chief fruit of last year's 
revolution, we shall not find it in the reorganized Grand 
Fleet, nor in the new initiative and aggression in the Nar- 
row Seas, for the ultimate results of which we still have to 
wait. If the enemy despairs both of victory on land or of 
such success as will give him a compromise peace, if he is 
faced by disintegration at home and, driven to a desperate 
stroke, sends out his Fleet to fight, we shall then see, but 
perhaps not till then, what the changes of last year have 
brought about in our fighting forces. Meantime, the suc- 
cess of the great reforms can be measured quite definitely. 
In the months of May and June over half a million Ameri- 
can soldiers were landed in France, sixty per cent, of whom 
were carried in British ships. No one in his senses in May 
or June last year would have thought this possible. 

Looked at largely, then, last year's revolution at White- 
hall is in all ways the most astonishing and the most satis- 
factory naval event of the last four years. It is the most 
satisfactory event, because its results have been so nearly 
what was foretold and because it only needs for the work 
to be completed for all the lessons of the war to be rightly 
applied. 



CHAPTER III 

Sea Fallacies : A Plea for First Principles 

What do we mean by "sea-power" and "command of the 
sea" ? What really is a navy and how does it gain these 
things? How come navies into existence? Of what con- 
stituents, human and material, are they composed ? How 
are the human elements taught, trained, commanded, and 
led ? How are the ships grouped and distributed, and the 
weapons fought in war? 

To the countrymen of Nelson, and to those of his great 
interpreter, Mahan, these might at first sight seem very 
superfluous questions, for they, almost of natural instinct, 
should understand that strange but overwhelming force 
that has made them. To the Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland, to the Empires that owe allegiance to the 
British Crown, to the United States of America, sea-power 
is at once their origin and the fundamental essential of 
their continued free and independent existence. And it 
is their predominant races that have produced the world's 
greatest sea fighters and sea writers. It is to the British 
Fleet that the world owes its promise of safety from Ger- 
man diabolism bred of autocracy. It is to sea-power that 
America must look if she is to finish the work the Allies 
have begun. With so great a stake in the sea, Great 
Britain and America should have fathomed its mysteries. 

But, despite the fighters and the writers, the sea in a 
great measure has kept its secret hidden. In every age 
the truth has been the possession of but a few. Countries 

33 



34 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

for a time have followed the light, and have then, as It 
were, been suddenly struck blind, and the fall of empires 
has followed the loss of vision. The world explains the 
British Empire of to-day, and the great American nation 
which has sprung from it, by a happy congenital talent for 
colonizing waste places, for self-government, for assimilat- 
ing and making friends with the unprogressive peoples, by 
giving them a better government than they had before. 
And certainly without such gifts the British races could not 
have overspread so large a portion of the earth. But the 
world is apt to forget that there were other empires sprung 
from other European peoples — Portuguese, French, Span- 
ish, and Dutch — each at some time larger in wealth, area, 
or population, than that which owed allegiance to the 
British Crown. In each case it was the power of their 
navies that gave each country these great possessions. Of 
some of these empires only insignificant traces remain to- 
day. They have been merged in the British Empire or 
have become independent. And the merging or the free- 
ing has always followed from war at sea. It is the British 
sailors, and not the British colonists, that have made the 
British Empire. It is not because the settlers in New 
England were better fighters or had more talent for self- 
government, but because Holland had the weaker navy, 
that the city which must shortly be the greatest in the 
world is named after the ancient capital of Northern Eng- 
land, and not after Amsterdam. It was not England's 
half-hearted fight on land, but her failure to preserve an 
unquestionable command of the sea that secured the ex- 
traordinary success of Washington and Hamilton's mili- 
tary plans. 

To all these truths we have long paid lip service. Years 
ago it passed into a commonplace that should ever national 



SEA FALLACIES 35 

existence be threatened by an outside force, it would be on 
\ the sea that we should have to rely for defence. With so 
tremendous an issue at stake, why was our knowledge so 
vague, why has our curiosity to know the truth been so 
feeble? Perhaps it is that communities that are very rich 
and very comfortable are slow to believe that danger can 
hang over them. In the catechism used to teach Catholic 
children the elements of their religion, the death that 
awaits every mortal, the instant judgment before the 
throne of God, the awful alternatives, Heaven or Hell, 
that depend on the issue, are spoken of as the "Four Last 
Things." Their title has been flippantly explained by the 
admitted fact that they are the very last things that most 
people ever think of. So has it been with America and 
England in the matter of war. The threat seemed too far 
off to be a common and universal concern. It could be 
left to the governments. So long as we voted all the 
money that was asked for officially, we had done our share. 
And, if statesmen told us that our naval force was large 
enough, and that it was in a state of high efficiency, and 
ready for war, we felt no obligation to ask what war meant, 
in what efficiency consisted, or how its existence could be 
either presumed or proved. We had no incentive to mas- 
ter the thing for ourselves. We were not challenged to 
inquire whether in fact the semblance of sea-power cor- 
responded with its reality. The fact that it was on sea- 
power that we relied for defence against invasion should, 
of course, have quickened our vigilance. It, in fact, dead- 
ened it. For we had never refused a pound the Admiralty 
had asked for. We took the sufficiency of the Navy for 
granted and, with the buffer of the fleet between ourselves 
and ruin, the threat of ruin seemed all the more remote. 
[ A minority, no doubt, was uneasy and did inquire. But 



36 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

they found their path crossed by difficulties almost insu- 
perable. The literature of sea-power was based entirely 
upon the history of the great sea wars of a dim past. 
Mahan, it is true, had so elucidated the broad doctrines of 
sea strategy that it seemed as if he who ran might read. 
But lucid and convincing as is his analysis, urbane and 
judicial as is his style, Mahan's work could not make the 
bulk of his readers adepts in naval doctrine. The fact 
seems to be that the fabled mysteries of the sea make 
every truth concerning it elusive, difficult for any one but 
a sailor to grasp. The difficulties were hardly lessened by 
Mahan's chief work having dealt completely with the past. 
The most important of the world's sea wars may be said 
to begin with the Armada and to end in 1 815. In these 
two and one quarter centuries the implements of naval war- 
fare changed hardly at all. Broadly speaking, from the 
days of Howard of Effingham to those of Fulton and Watt, 
man used three-masted ships and muzzle-loading cannon. 
Hence the history of the Great Age deals very little with 
the technique of war. 

To the lay reader, therefore, the study of sea-power, 
based upon these ancient campaigns, seemed not only the 
pursuit of a subject vague and elusive in itself, but one 
that becomes doubly unreal through the successive revolu- 
tions of modern times. It was like studying the politics of 
an extinct community told in records of a dead language. 
The incendiary shell, armour to keep the shell out, steam 
that made ships completely dirigible in the sense that they 
could with great rapidity be turned to any chosen course, 
these alone had, by the middle of the last century, com- 
pletely revolutionized the tactical employment of sea force. 
Steam, which made a ship easier to aim than a gun, gave 
birth to ramming; and naval thought was hypnotized by 



SEA FALLACIES 



37 



this fallacy for nearly two generations. By the end of the 
century the whole art had again been changed, first by the 
development of the monster cannon, and next, a far more 
important invention, the mountings that made first light, 
and then heavy, guns so flexible in use that they could be 
aimed in a moderate sea way. These and the invention 
of the fish torpedo and the high speed boat for carrying it — 
that in the twilight of dawn and eve would make it prac- 
tically invisible — brought about fresh changes that altered 
not only the tactics of battle, but those of blockade and 
of many other naval operations. 

But, great and surprising as were the changes and de- 
velopments in naval weapons and the material in the last 
half of the nineteenth century, they were completely 
eclipsed by the number and nature of the advances made 
in the first decade and a half of the twentieth. If, to the 
ordinary reader, the lessons of the past seemed of doubtful 
value in the light of what steam, the explosive shell, the 
torpedo, and the heavy gun had effected, what was to be 
said in the light of the kaleidoscope of novelties sprung 
upon the world after the latest of all the naval wars ? For 
between 1906 and 1914 there came a succession of naval 
sensations so startling as to make clear and connected 
thinking appear a visionary hope. 

First we heard that naval guns, that until 1904 had no- 
where been fired at a greater range than two miles, were 
actually being used in practice — and used with success — at 
distances of ten, twelve, and fourteen thousand yards. 
It was not only that guns were increasing their range, they 
were growing monstrously in size and still more mon- 
strously in the numbers put into each individual ship, so 
that the ships grew faster than the guns themselves, until 
the capital ship of to-day is more than double the displace- 



38 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

ment of that of ten years ago. And with size came speed, 
not only the speed that would follow naturally from the in- 
crease in length, but the further speed that was got by 
a more compact and lighter form of prime mover. Ten 
years ago the highest action pace a fleet of capital ships 
would have been, perhaps, seventeen knots. Now whole 
squadrons can do twenty-five per cent, better. And with 
the battle-cruiser we have now a capital ship carrying the 
biggest guns there are, that can take them into action lit- 
erally twice as fast as a twelve-inch gun could be carried 
into battle twelve years ago. Thus with range increased 
out of all imagination, and vastly greater speed, the tac- 
tics of battle were obviously in the melting pot. 

But these were far from being the only revolutionary 
elements. There followed in quick succession a new tor- 
pedo that ran with almost perfect accuracy for five or six 
miles and carried an explosive charge three or four times 
larger than anything previously known. It had seemed 
but yesterday that a mile was the torpedo's almost outside 
range. Then, at the beginning of the decade of which I 
speak, the submarine had a low speed on the surface, and 
half of that below it, with a very limited area of manoeuvre 
in which it could work. It seemed little more, many 
thought, than an ingenious toy capable, perhaps, of an 
occasional deadly surprise if an enemy's fleet should come 
too near a harbour, but seemingly not destined to influence 
the grand tactics of war. But in an incredibly short time 
the submarine became a submersible ocean cruiser, with 
three times the radius of a pre-Dreadnought battleship, 
with a far higher surface speed, and able to carry guns of 
such power that they could sink a merchant ship with 
half-a-dozen rounds at four miles. In this, even the dullest 
could see something more than a change in naval tac- 



SEA FALLACIES 39 

tics. Might not the whole nature of naval war be 
changed? For the long range torpedo that could be used 
in action, at a range equal to that at which the greatest 
guns could be expected to hit; the submarine that, com- 
pletely hidden, could bring the torpedo to such short 
range that hits would be a certainty, the invisible boat 
that could evade the closest surface cordon and, almost 
undisturbed, hunt and destroy merchantmen on the trade 
routes — that, but for the submarine, would have been com- 
pletely protected by the command won by the predomi- 
nant fleet — wonderful as these new things were, they were 
far from exhausting the new developments of under-water 
war. Great ingenuity had been shown not only in devel- 
oping very powerful mines, but in devising means of laying 
them by the fastest ships, so that not only could these 
deadly traps be set by merchantmen disguised as neutrals, 
but by fast cruisers whose speed could at any time enable 
them to evade the patrols. And, finally, it was equally 
obvious that the submarine could become a mine layer 
also. There was, then, literally no spot in the ocean that 
might not at any moment be mined. 

Add to all this, that while wireless introduced an almost 
instant means of sending orders to or getting news from 
such distant spots that space was annihilated, airships 
and aeroplanes — with some, as many thought, with a de- 
cisive capacity for attacking fleets in harbour — seemed to 
make scouting possible over unthought of areas. Can 
we blame the landsman who set himself patiently to learn 
the rudiments of the naval art if, after a painful study of 
the past, he found himself so bemused by the changes of 
the present as to wonder if a single accepted dogma could 
survive the high-explosive bombardment of to-day's in- 
ventions ? It almost looked as if nothing could be learned 



4 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

from the past and less, if possible, be foretold about the 
future. If the understanding of sea-power in the days of 
old had been the possession of but a few, it seemed that to- 
day it must be denied to all. 

It is, therefore, not surprising that extraordinary mis- 
understandings were — and are — prevalent. Only one 
truth seemed to survive— the supremacy of the capital 
ship. But this, too, became an error, because it excluded 
other truths. To the vast bulk of laymen the word "navy" 
suggested no more than a panorama of great super-Dread- 
nought battleships. From time to time naval reviews 
had been held, and the illustrated papers had shown these 
great vessels, long vistas of them, anchored in perfectly 
kept lines, with light cruisers and destroyers fading away 
into the distance. Both in the pictures and in the descrip- 
tions all emphasis was laid upon the ships. And in this 
the current official naval thought of the day was reflected. 
If any one wished to compare the British Fleet with the 
German or the German with the American, he confined 
himself to enumerating their respective totals in Dread- 
noughts, and let it go at that. His mental picture of a 
fleet was thus a perspective of vast mastodons armed with 
guns of fabulous reach and still more fabulous power, 
gifted, some of them, with speed that could outstrip the 
fastest liner, and encased, at least in part, in almost im- 
penetrable armour. 

He would know generally, of course, that such things as 
cruisers, destroyers, and submarines not only existed, but 
were indeed necessary. He would know vaguely that 
cruisers were useful for cruising, and destroyers for their 
eponymous duties — though he would have been sorely 
puzzled if he had been asked to say exactly what the cruis- 
ing was for, or what the destroyers were intended to de- 



SEA FALLACIES 41 

stroy. He would have heard of the mystic properties of 
torpedoes, and of mines, and of certain weird possibilities 
that lay before the combination of the torpedo with the 
submarine. Similarly, if one challenged him, he would 
admit, of course, that guns could only be formidable if 
they hit, and that fleets could only succeed in battle if their 
officers and crews were properly trained and skilfully led. 
But these were things that could not be tabulated or 
scheduled. They did not figure in Naval Annuals, nor in 
Admiralty statements. They were stumbling blocks to 
the layman's desire to be satisfied — and he took it for 
granted that they were all right, and was content to meas- 
ure naval strength by the number of the biggest ships, 
and so rate the navies of the world by what they possessed 
in these colossal units only. Thus, he would always put 
Great Britain first, and recently Germany second, with 
the United States, Japan, and France taking the third 
place in succession, as their annual programmes of con- 
struction were announced. And just as he thought of 
navies in terms of battleships, so he thought of naval war 
in terms of great sea battles. A reaction was inevitable. 
Four years have now passed since Germany struck her 
felon blow at the Christian tradition the nations have been 
struggling to maintain — and so far there has been no Tra- 
falgar. The German Fleet, hidden behind its defences, is 
still integral and afloat, and though the British Fleet has 
again and again come out, its battleships have got into 
action but once, and then for a few minutes only. For 
four years, therefore, the two greatest battle fleets in the 
world seem to have been doing nothing; and to be doing 
nothing now! And so, if you ask the average layman for 
a broad opinion on sea-power to-day, he will tell you that 
battle fleets are useless. For a year or more he has heard 



42 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

little of any work at sea except of the work of the subma- 
rine. To him, therefore, it seemed manifest that the tor- 
pedo has superseded the gun and the submarine the battle- 
ship. His opinions, in other words, have swung full cycle. 
Was he right before and is he wrong now, or was his first 
view an error and has he at last, under the stern teachings 
of war, attained the truth? 

He was wrong then and he is wrong now. It was an 
error to think of sea-power only in terms of battleships. 
It is a still greater error to suppose that sea-power can ex- 
ist in any useful form unless based on battleships in over- 
whelming strength. It is true that the German subma- 
rines did for a period so threaten the world's shipping as to 
make it possible that the overwhelming military resources 
of the Allies might never be brought to bear against the 
full strength of the German line in France. It is also true 
that they have added years to the duration of the war, 
millions and millions to its cost, and have brought us to 
straits that are hard to bear. They were truly Germany's 
most powerful defence, the only useful form of sea force 
for her. But it is, nevertheless, quite impossible that the 
submarine can give to Germany any of the direct advan- 
tages which the command of the sea confers. 

These simple truths will come home convincingly to us 
if we suppose for a minute that, at the only encounter in 
which the battle fleets met, it had been the German Fleet 
that was victorious. Had Scheer and Von Hipper met 
Beatty and Jellicoe in a fair, well-fought-out action, and 
sunk or captured the greater part of the British Fleet so 
that but a crippled remnant could struggle back to harbour 
— as little left of the mighty British armada as survived of 
Villeneuve's and Gravina's forces after Trafalgar — would 
it ever have been necessary for Germany to have chal- 



SEA FALLACIES 43 

lenged the forbearance of the world by reckless and pi- 
ratical attacks on peaceful shipping? Quite obviously 
not. For with her battle-cruisers patrolling unchallenged 
in the Channel, the North Sea, and the Atlantic, with all 
her destroyers and light cruisers working under their pro- 
tection, no British merchantman could have cleared or 
entered any British port, no neutral could have passed the 
blockading lines. British submarines might, indeed, 
have held up German shipping — but we should have lost 
the use of merchant shipping ourselves. Our armies 
would have been cut ofT from their overseas base, our fight- 
ing Allies would have been robbed of the food and mate- 
rial now reaching them from North and South America 
and the British Dominions, and the civil population of 
England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, would have been 
threatened by immediate invasion or by not very far dis- 
tant famine. And this is so because command of the sea 
is conditioned by a superior battleship strength, and can 
only be exercised by surface craft which cannot be driven 
off the sea. 

Let us look at this question again from another angle. 
It is probable that Germany possessed, during the summer 
of 1917, some two hundred submarines at least. She may 
have possessed more. These submarines were, for many 
months, sinking on an average of from twenty to twenty- 
four British ships a week, and perhaps rather more than 
half as many Allied and neutral ships as well. It was, of 
course, a very formidable loss. But of every seventeen 
ships that went into the danger zone, sixteen did actually 
escape. How many would have escaped if Germany 
could have maintained a fleet of fifty surface ships — light 
cruisers, armed merchantmen, swift destroyers — in these 
waters ? Supposing trade ships were to put to sea and try 



44 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

to get past such a cordon just as they risk passing the sub- 
marines, how many could possibly escape? What would 
be the toll each surface ship would take — one a fortnight ? 
One a week? One a day? 

These are all ridiculous questions, because, could such 
a cordon be maintained, no ship bound for Great Britain 
would put to sea at all. It would not be sixteen escaping 
to one captured; the whole seventeen would so certainly 
be doomed that they all would stay in port. So much the 
war has certainly taught us. When, on August 4, 1914, 
the British Government declared war on Germany, the 
sailing of every German ship the world over was then and 
there stopped. A hundred that were at sea could not be 
warned and were captured. Those that escaped capture 
made German or neutral ports. But the order not to 
sail did not wait upon results. The stoppage of the Ger- 
man merchant service was automatic and instantaneous. 
It would have been raving insanity to have risked encoun- 
ter with a navy that held the surface command. 

Three months later the situation was locally reversed in 
South American waters. Von Spee, with two very power- 
ful armoured cruisers and three light fast vessels, encoun- 
tered a very inferior British force under Admiral Cradock 
off Coronel, and defeated it decisively. Von Spee's vic- 
tory meant that in the Southern Atlantic there was no 
force capable of opposing him. Instantly every South 
American port was closed. No one knew where Von Spee 
might turn up next. Not a captain dared clear for Eng- 
land. Even in South Africa General Botha's hands were 
tied. A section of the Transvaal and Orange Colony 
Dutch had risen in rebellion, and had made common cause 
with the Germans in South West Africa. With Von Spee 
at large there was no saying what help he would bring to 



SEA FALLACIES 45 

the enemy, and the risk that communications with the 
mother country might be cut, was a real one. For four 
weeks the South African Government was paralyzed. 

Then followed the most brilliant piece of sea strategy in 
the war. Two battle-cruisers were sent secretly and at 
top speed to the Falkland Islands. They reached Port 
Stanley on December 7, and on the next morning at eight 
o'clock, Von Spee, in obedience to some inexplicable in- 
stinct, brought the whole of his forces to attack the islands. 
It was the most extraordinary coincidence in the history 
of war. It was as if a man had been told that a sixty- 
pound salmon had been seen in a certain river, had thrown 
a fly at random, and had got a bite and landed him with 
his first cast. The verdict of Coronel was reversed. Four 
out of five German ships were sunk. The Dresden es- 
caped, but only to hide herself in the fjords of Patagonia. 
Germany's brief spell of sea command in the South Atlan- 
tic had ended as dramatically as it began. And within 
twenty-four hours the laden ships of Chile and the Ar- 
gentine had put to sea, the underwriters had dropped 
their premiums to the pre-war rate, and the arrangements 
for the invasion of South West Africa had begun. 

Once more it had been proved that the course of sea 
traffic is governed by sea command, and sea command 
means the general power to use the ocean for what it truly 
is, the highway that connects all the ports of the world to- 
gether. To use, that is to say, exclusively; to limit its use 
to the power possessing that command, and to those other 
powers that might be friendly to them, or to neutrals un- 
concerned with the war altogether. Never in history has 
this command been complete. From Trafalgar to 181 5, 
the British, if ever, commanded the sea adversely against 
their enemies. But they lost anything from six hundred 



46 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

to one thousand ships a year, and it was never possible to 
stop the whole of the enemy's trade. Before submarines 
were ever heard of, then, command could not be made 
absolute. Strangely enough, steam changed all this. To- 
day the surface command against surface force is virtually 
absolute. In August, 1914, Germany had in all a dozen 
armed vessels on the high seas prepared to attack British 
shipping. They took and destroyed fifty-six vessels only. 
All but three were destroyed or driven to intern in very 
few months. Save for a raider or two — exceptions that 
prove the rule — no surface attack has been made on the 
Allies' ocean trade since then. And there has been no 
ocean trade in German bottoms at all. In a sense, then, 
the submarine has only restored to the weaker belligerent 
a part — and only a small part — of the powers he possessed 
in the days of sailing fleets. It gives him a limited power 
of attack on his enemy's supply. But, two cruises of the 
Deutschland notwithstanding, it has returned him none 
of his old trading power. And, as the course of the sub- 
marine war has shown, so long as he limits the attack on 
trade to proportions which the neutral world can put up 
with, the power of attack is so restricted as to be without 
military value. The attempt, then, to get a kind of com- 
mand of the sea by submarine alone could only be made 
at the cost of turning the whole neutral world into an en- 
emy world. And from the German point of view, the 
tragedy of the thing is this. The attempt was made, the 
whole world has become hostile, and the thing has failed. 
In these two popular fallacies — the pre-war error that 
battleships were everything, and the present error that 
they are absolutely useless, and that it is the submarine 
that reigns at sea — we see, as it appears to me, convincing 
proofs that an exposition of the ABC of sea fighting would 



SEA FALLACIES 47 

not be a work of supererogation. I have spoken of these 
fallacies as popular fallacies, but they are not limited to 
the unlettered, nor are they foreign to men of affairs. 
They have, on the contrary, flourished most in ministries, 
and been strongly held by those whose business it should 
have been not only to follow or express, but to mould, pub- 
lic opinion. A British statesman, afterwards Prime Min- 
ister, said once in Parliament: "I believe that since the 
Declaration of Paris, the fleet, valuable as it is for prevent- 
ing an invasion of these shores, is almost valueless for any 
other purpose. " Most strange of all, the strongest expon- 
ents of these heresies have been certain naval officers them- 
selves. It would be interesting to essay to account for 
this, as it seems to me the strangest curiosity of our times. 
Let it suffice for the moment to state that what up to a 
year ago was a dominating faith, is recognized universally 
to-day as a devastating tissue of errors. 

Had the root principles of sea-power been properly un- 
derstood, these errors never could have prevailed. For 
it is popular opinion that is ultimately responsible for the 
kind of government each nation has. On it depends the 
kind of navy that each government creates, and hence the 
measure of safety at sea that each nation enjoys. The 
tragic history of the last four years shows how this opinion 
can be misguided into an almost fatal tolerance of what 
is false. 

When will a new Mahan arise to set things right? The 
world needs a naval teacher. 



CHAPTER IV 

Some Root Doctrines 

War is a condition which arises when the appeal to reason, 
justice, or fear has failed and a nation wishes, or in self- 
defence is compelled, to bring another to its will by force. 

Force is exerted by armies on land and naval fleets at 
sea. It is the primary business of the armed force in each 
element to defeat that of the enemy in battle, and so disin- 
tegrate and destroy it. The beaten nation's power to 
fight is thus brought to naught. Its resolution to renew 
the attack or to continue resistance is broken down. If 
defeat throws it open to invasion without power of stop- 
ping the invader, its national life, internal and external, 
is paralyzed and it is compelled to bow to the will of the 
conqueror. In its simplest conception, then, war is a 
struggle between nations in which the opposing sides pit 
their armed forces against each other and have to abide 
by the issue of that combat. 

It is rarely, however, that a single battle between armies 
has decided the issue of a war. The campaigns of Jena 
and Sadowa are indeed instances in point. But they are 
in their way as exceptional as is the Boer War — decided 
without a pitched battle being fought at all. These may 
be regarded as the extremes. Normally, war may end 
victoriously for one side without the other having been 
deprived of the means of continuing even effective resist- 
ance. In such cases it is some moderation in the victor's 
terms, some change in the ambition of the partially de- 

4 8 



SOME ROOT DOCTRINES 49 

feated side, or, at least, a sense that no adequate results 
can be expected from further fighting, that has brought 
about the cessation of hostilities. 

But, again, there are wars in which the issues can admit 
of no compromise at all. The invasions of Tamerlane, 
Attila, and the Mohammedan conquerors were not wars 
but campaigns of extermination. It is in such a war that 
we are engaged to-day. The stake for every country is of 
a vital character, so that compromise is indistinguishable 
from defeat, and defeat must carry with it the negation of 
everything which makes national life tolerable. The Ger- 
mans have convinced themselves that there is no alter- 
native to world dominion but downfall, and the civilized 
world is determined that there shall be no German world 
dominion. Such a struggle by its nature permits of no 
end by arrangement or negotiation. It must go forward 
until either one side or the other is either militarily defeated 
or until the economic strain disintegrates the state. In 
such conditions a secondary form of military pressure may 
be of paramount importance. 

Now if we go back to our first definition of war, as a 
struggle in which the opposing sides pit their armed forces 
against each other and abide by the issue of the combat, 
we must remember that, just as it is rare for a war to be 
decided by a single combat, so is it rare for a single combat 
to dissipate and destroy an army. Ordinary prudence 
dictates that there shall be protected lines or some strong 
place into which it can retreat in the event of defeat. And 
when it is thus compelled to abandon open fighting and 
seek a position of natural or artificial strength, it becomes 
the business of the stronger to complete the business by 
destroying and penetrating the defences. But if this is 
too costly a proceeding, the stronger tries to contain the 



5 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

force so protected and passes on, if possible, to investment 
and siege. The simplest case of this is the complete en- 
circlement and siege of the great city or camp, of which 
the war of 1870 gave two such striking examples in Metz 
and Paris. 

When war calls out the whole manhood of many nations 
and turns them into fighting forces, it is obvious that there 
cannot be equality of force in all the theatres. Where either 
side is weaker, it is compelled locally to adopt the same 
tactics that a defeated force adopts. It must, that is to 
say, go upon the defensive. It entrenches and fortifies 
itself. Thus, as military operations, the attack and de- 
fence of fortifications may become general, and this with- 
out either side being necessarily able to inflict the pressure 
of siege upon its opponent, siege being understood to mean 
severing of communications with the outside world. But, 
clearly, where siege is possible, as was the case with Metz 
and Paris, the attacking force becomes also the investing 
force. It can rely upon the straits to which it can reduce 
the besieged to bring about that surrender which, ex hy- 
pothesi, would have been the result of the battle had the 
weaker not declined it. 

Battle and siege are thus in essence complementary 
modes of war and all military action may roughly be de- 
fined as fighting, or some method of postponing fighting, or 
steps or preparations towards fighting. 

SEA WAR 

War at sea is carried on, as we have seen, by naval 
fleets. The immediate object of a fleet is to find, defeat, 
and destroy the enemy's fleet. The ultimate or further 
objective which is gained by such destruction is to monopo- 
lize the use of the sea, as the master highway, by retaining 



SOME ROOT DOCTRINES 51 

freedom for the passage of the victor's ships while denying 
such passage to those of the defeated. The power to in- 
sist on this exclusive control of sea communications is 
called "command of the sea." 

If the war is a purely naval war, that is, limited to the 
use of naval forces and hence directed solely to naval 
ends — as was the war between England and France, in 
the course of which the United States gained their indepen- 
dence — the command of the sea can theoretically be won 
by a single victorious battle. For if the main force of one 
side is destroyed, that belligerent becomes incapable of 
questioning the supremacy of the enemy, and hence must 
limit his sea action to sporadic attempts on communica- 
tions. These can never be maintained to a degree that 
can be decisive, simply because a power greater than can 
be brought to the attack can be employed for their defence. 
Success in such a war, then, can simply be measured in 
terms of trade or of sea supply; defeat by the economic loss 
that its cessation must cause. There have been purely 
naval wars in the past and, could a combination be formed 
of countries whose aggregate sea-power was greater than 
that of Great Britain, a purely naval war might occur 
again. But it could only be brought about by such a con- 
juncture for the reason that Great Britain is the only coun- 
try to which a purely naval defeat would mean such utter 
and immediate ruin, that her surrender to her sea con- 
queror would follow inevitably and promptly. This is so 
because, whereas almost every country is to some extent 
dependent upon sea supplies, Great Britain exists only in 
virtue of them. 

To us, therefore, the advantages that derive from pos- 
session of command of the sea are overwhelming; and our 
possession of it adversely to any other country must be 



52 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

disadvantageous, exactly in proportion as that country is 
dependent upon sea supplies. 

In a war which is both naval and continental, as in the 
present war, command of the sea means much more than 
the power to deny the gain and comfort of sea supplies. 
The side that is defeated at sea, or avoids fighting for fear 
of defeat, may lose not only everything which can come to 
it directly or indirectly from the use of ships, but will suffer 
'from the added disadvantage that a military use can be 
made of sea communications in the enemy's possession. 
The side that commands the sea can carry on its ocean 
traffic, and supply not only its civil population but its 
armies and its fleets from abroad. It can ally itself with 
continental nations and send its military forces away in 
ships and land them in friendly ports. It can prevent the 
sea invasion of its own, of its allies' territory, and of its colo- 
nial possessions. It can stop not only the enemy's own 
sea trade, but all neutral sea trade that directly or indirect- 
ly can benefit him, so that he is cut off from all supplies, 
whether raw material, food, or manufacture, not produced 
in his own territories or in those with which he has land 
communications. If the sea force of the side possessing 
command includes means of engaging stationary defences 
with success, and removing passive sea defences from the 
approaches to the enemy's coast and harbours, then it can 
even beat down the enemy's coast protection and invade him 
directly. The nation with sea command, then, threatens 
its opponents with attack by land at every point and, 
pending its development, can to the extent to which the 
enemy is dependent on overseas traffic for the necessaries 
of life, or for the maintenance of his armies at full fighting 
strength, subject him to all the rigour of siege. 

The command of the sea which makes the exercise of 



SOME ROOT DOCTRINES 53 

these menaces possible, is, as we have seen, the fruit of 
victory over the enemy's armed forces. But if that enemy 
is weaker and follows at sea the course which, as we have 
seen, an army inferior on land must adopt, viz., declines 
battle and withdraws his fleet behind defences to postpone 
it, he thereby to a great extent surrenders the sea con- 
mand to the stronger. And if the stronger knows his 
business, he at once uses this command to subject his op- 
ponent to the economic disadvantages set out above. 
Siege by sea, then, like siege on land, may be the conse- 
quence of, but is always the alternative to, victorious bat- 
tle in bringing about a decision. For while victorious 
battle robs the defeated nation of any possibility of ward- 
ing off further attack by force, siege undermines the will 
and resolution of the civil population to endure, and thus 
calls forces into existence which will compel the enemy's 
government to surrender. 

The command of the ocean ways are, then, of tremen- 
dous consequences in war — so great, indeed, that the con- 
trol of sea communications has often been put forth as the 
primary object to be aimed at by sea-power. That it is 
the object of sea-power victoriously used we have already 
seen. But so long as the enemy possesses forces that act- 
ually disturb the tranquil enjoyment of sea communica- 
tions, command is certainly qualified, and if he have in 
reserve unused and unimpaired forces for attacking and 
defeating the fleet which secures command, the command 
of the sea cannot be said to be unconditionally possessed. 
Consequently, if destruction of the enemy's armed forces 
is a necessary condition to real — because indisputable — 
sea command, it is for victorious battle and for nothing 
else that fleets exist. 

These propositions are not only obviously true; they 



54 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

seem to be truly obvious. But in recent history we have 
witnessed the curious spectacle that an inversion of the 
order of these two statements did actually create two dif- 
ferent and opposed schools of naval thought. The first 
school saw in victory the first and constant preoccupation 
of the fleet. It concerned itself, therefore, chiefly with 
the essentials to victory, and as victory can only come 
from fighting, it was at the elements of fighting that it 
worked. It sought to find the most perfect methods of 
using weapons, because it realized that it was only from 
the evolution of these that right tactics could be deduced. 
It studied the campaigns of the past to discover the two 
great groups of doctrine that our fighting ancestors have 
bequeathed to us, the first dealing with the science of 
strategy, the second with the principles of command. 
They realized that weapons and the ships that carry them 
do not fight themselves, but must be fought by men; and 
they wished those men rightly educated and trained in 
the subtle and complex science of their high calling. To 
them, in short, sea war was an affair of knowledge applied 
by men trained both in the wisdom and in the lofty spirit 
of those that had excelled in naval war before. And, faith- 
ful to the traditions of the past, no less than eager for re- 
search into all the undeveloped potentialities of the prod- 
ucts of modern progress, they pinned their faith on ability 
to force the enemy to battle, and to beat him there when 
battle came. 

The other school went for a short cut to naval triumph. 
If only they could get a fleet of ships so big, so fabulously 
armed, so numerous as to make it seem to the enemy that 
his fleet was too feeble to attack, why then battle would be 
made altogether superfluous, and no further worry over 
so unlikely a contingency was necessary. They did not, 



SOME ROOT DOCTRINES 55 

therefore, trouble to inquire either into the processes 
needed for bringing battle about, or into what was neces- 
sary for success when battle came. They passed on to the 
contemplation of what can only be the fruit of victory — 
as if victory were not a condition precedent! 

It was, unfortunately, this group, hypnotized by a the- 
ory it did not understand, which controlled naval policy 
in Great Britain for the ten years preceding the war, and 
for the first three and a half years of it. Their error lay, 
of course, in supposing that a fleet, so materially strong 
and numerous that its defeat was unimaginable because 
no attack on it could be conceived, must — so long as any 
serious lowering of its force by attrition was avoided — be 
the military equivalent to one which had already defeated 
the enemy; that "invincible" and "victorious" were, in 
short, interchangeable terms. So masterful was this 
obsession that their apologists — shutting their eyes to the 
obvious and appalling consequences of this creed in action 
— two years after the event, still regarded the only encoun- 
ter between the main fleets in this war as a great victory, 
because the larger, by avoiding the risk of close contact 
with the lesser, came out of the conflict with forces as sub- 
stantially superior to the enemy's as they were before the 
opportunity of a decisive battle had been offered. 

The group in question had, indeed, become possessed 
of one truth. It was simply that preponderant force is a 
vital element. But by holding it to the exclusion of all 
other truths they were blinded not only to the crucial 
business of studying the intellectual and technical essen- 
tials to fighting, but even to the orthodox meaning of the 
communication theory of sea war, on which they had so 
eagerly, but ignorantly, seized. For the true doctrine is, 
as we have already seen, just this, that when an enemy re- 



56 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

fuses battle, the stronger navy's sole remaining offensive 
is to cut him off from communication with the sea. It 
must do this, as we have seen, to restrict his supplies, to 
weaken his armed forces, to strike at his prosperity and 
the comfort of his civil population, and thus obtain that 
partial paralysis of his national life, the completion of 
which can only be got by a victory that disarms him. And 
these things, which are the results of blockade, are also 
the intended results. But they are not intended for their 
own sake only, nor, primarily, to make the enemy surren- 
der to avoid them. They are inflicted to force the enemy 
to the battle which he has refused, because it is only by 
battle that he can relieve himself from them. A stringent 
blockade, then, is the primary means of inducing a fleet 
action, and hence we see that siege, while truly the only 
alternative to battle, is something much more. 

Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that, viewed in its 
right relation to the true theory of war — a state of things 
in which a conflict of wills between nations is settled by a 
conflict of their armed forces — it is almost the primary 
object of siege to bring this conflict about and so to hasten 
the issue. From the definition the aim of war is the en- 
emy's defeat and not merely his surrender. And battle 
is necessary to defeat. r 

The failure to realize this elementary truth was the 
cause of much more than an omission to fathom the tech- 
nique of fighting, the fruits of which we shall find, when we 
come to the consideration of the naval actions of the last 
three years and note the curious result of the Jutland de- 
ployment and the inconclusive character of so many of the 
artillery encounters which have occurred, and the extraor- 
dinary prolongation of those which were not inconclu- 
sive. It brought about what is, at first sight, something 



SOME ROOT DOCTRINES 57 

even more astonishing, viz., an actual indisposition by 
those in control of the British Navy, to adopt, when the 
enemy refused battle, the only course that could compel 
him to it, though it was actually the first article of their 
creed to gain the power to do this very thing. 

Great Britain went to war at midnight August 4, 1914. 
The Grand Fleet went to its war stations. The High 
Seas Fleet withdrew to the security of the Kiel Canal. 
Within a day no enemy trading ships dared put to sea. 
Within a week, transports were carrying a British army 
to France. Our merchantmen continued their sea trading 
almost as if nothing had happened. But, though the Ger- 
man flag vanished from the seas, neutral vessels were 
free to use the German ports until the following March, 
and for another six months the enemy was free to import, 
in almost any quantities that he liked, certain forms of 
food, cotton, fats, and many of the ores and chemicals 
which were the indispensable raw material of the propel- 
lants and explosives vitally necessary to him in a prolonged 
war. 

By permitting this, we showed that our policy, in other 
words, was not to attack but to wait attack, and then not 
to do anything to compel the enemy to attack. Our sea 
statesmen had not indoctrinated the civil government 
with a clearly defined policy that it was prepared to enforce 
at the opening of hostilities. Yet in a matter of this kind 
it was exactly at the opening of hostilities that a stringent 
blockade, accompanied by a generous rationing of sea 
supplies to the neutrals bordering on Germany, could have 
been proclaimed and enforced with the least friction. For, 
in the first place, Germany's declaration of war was so en- 
tirely unprovoked and sudden, and her first measure of 
war, the invasion of Belgium — when her soldiery became 



58 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

at once outrageous — combined the world over to create a 
neutral opinion strongly in favour of the Allies. Next, 
the fact that Great Britain's participation in the war was 
both professedly and actually in loyalty to the identical 
obligation to Belgium which Germany had violated, pre- 
disposed America, for the first time since the colonies pro- 
claimed their independence, to an active sympathy with 
the British ideal, perhaps because for the first time that 
ideal appeared to them to be one that was purely chival- 
rous. It was then everything that the psychological 
moment should have been seized. Nor could it have been 
difficult to see that, if the opportunity was allowed to slip 
by, the mere fact that a half measure — to wit, the suspense 
of German shipping — had been enforced, must lead to a 
new condition, namely, a hugely magnified trade through 
the neutral ports. This trade, it is true, was nominally 
confined to goods that were not contraband of war. But 
contraband is an elastic term, and, to make things worse, 
the British Government proclaimed its intention — so 
little had war-trained thought prepared its policy — of 
accepting the provisions of the unexecuted Declaration 
of London as defining what contraband was to be. This 
gave the enemy the liberty to import materials indispen- 
sable to his manufacture of munitions and of armament, 
was one of which full advantage was taken. It was bad 
enough that cotton, indispensable ores, the raw materials 
of glycerine as well as the finished product, were poured 
into the laboratories, the factories, and the arsenals of 
Germany without stint or limit. It was, if possible, worse 
that this traffic created gigantic exporting interests in 
America which, once vested, made the restriction of them 
wear the appearance of an intolerable hardship when, 
many months too late, more stringent measures were 



SOME ROOT DOCTRINES 59 

taken. So powerful indeed had these interests become, 
that the real and rigid blockade which, under the doctrines 
of the "continuous voyage" and the "ultimate destination" 
would from the first have been fully consonant with inter- 
national law, was actually never attempted at all until 
the United States themselves became belligerents. 

For fourteen months, then, we witnessed a state of 
things so paradoxical as to be without parallel in history. 
It was our professed creed that the fleet existed to seize 
and control sea communications. The enemy conceded 
us this control and, so far from using it to straiten him so 
relentlessly that he would have no choice but to fight for 
relief from it, we actually permitted him to draw, through 
sources absolutely under our control, for essentials in the 
form of overseas supplies that he needed in a war which all 
the world realized must now be a prolonged one. The 
traditional naval policy of the country was thus not re- 
flected in the action of the country's government, because 
that policy had no representation in the Navy's counsels. 
There is, perhaps, no single heresy for which so high and 
disastrous a price has been paid. 

It would appear, then, that our pre-war naval policy 
did not contemplate that immediate and stringent sea 
pressure that would compel the enemy to action, nor yet 
the closest and most vigilant kind of watch that would 
have brought him to action in the promptest and most 
fatal manner when circumstances compelled him to come 
out. Nor is it difficult to see why this was so. To profess 
the communication theory of sea war without realizing 
that the control of communications is the result of victory, 
that is, setting up a consequence as an aim while ignoring 
its cause, inevitably led to the inverted error, an unwill- 
ingness so to employ the control of communications, when 



60 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

the enemy ceded them without victory, as to force the 
enemy into battle as the only hope of escaping an intoler- 
able condition. Not having contemplated and prepared 
for battle as the first aim of naval policy, they left an in- 
stinctive disinclination to force on an affair which they 
suddenly realized would be as critical as it was certainly 
unanticipated. It is this which explains possibly the 
greatest paradox in history, viz., that Germany proclaimed 
a strict blockade of Great Britain before Great Britain 
proclaimed such a blockade of Germany. 



CHAPTER V 

Elements of Sea Force 

Having established the truth that the primary purpose 
of a navy is to fight and its immediate object victory, we 
must next pass on to ask of what it is that naval force con- 
sists and by what processes it fights and wins. All fight- 
ing is done by men using weapons. At sea the men and 
weapons have to be carried in ships. The ships and weap- 
ons have to be designed and selected, and the men have to 
be converted from ignorance into accomplished fighting 
units. Finally, the ships and the weapons must be em- 
ployed in accordance with certain methods and in obedi- 
ence to certain dynamic laws — the technique, the tactics, 
and the strategy of war. It may simplify the subject to 
summarize the elements of naval force as follows. It may 
be said to consist: 

1. Of the main weapon-bearing ships built for fighting 
fleet actions. 

2. Of smaller armed ships of many kinds necessary for 
the right use of the main fighting ships and for the sub- 
sidiary operations leading up to, or fol owing from, fleet 
actions. 

3. Of means other than ships — aircraft, mines, and the 
like — for entrapping and injuring the main fleets and 
cruisers of the enemy, for defending and attacking bases, 
and for making certain sea areas dangerous or impassable 
to the enemy's forces. 

4. Of the personnel to man, fight, and command the 

61 



62 THE BRITISH NAVY^ IN BATTLE 

ships and to direct the operations of the separate squad- 
rons and fleets at sea; and 

5. Of that higher central command on shore that, by 
designing and selecting the material, by training the of- 
ficers and men, creates sea force; that discovers the right 
method of using weapons; that elucidates the tactics that 
follow from such use; that develops the strategy which the 
strength and situation of rival forces makes best; that as 
a preparation for war, keeps the whole force ready in all 
particulars; that in war, directs it to the greatest advant- 
age. 

To get the best naval force it is clear, then, that you want 

(a) Ships whose tactical properties are superior to those 
which the enemy possesses, and you want more of them. 

(b) Weapons delivering a more devastating blow, that 
can reach to longer ranges, and can be employed with higher 
rapidity. 

(c) Methods of employing both the ships and the weap- 
ons that will assure to them the utmost scope of efficiency 
so as to strike at the enemy — if possible — before the enemy 
can strike, and will keep them in use when conditions of 
movement, light, and weather have become too difficult 
for the enemy to overcome. 

{d) A personnel of higher moral, better discipline, and 
greater skill. 

(e) A staff of officers to train and command this person- 
nel, adept in all the craft of fighting, instinct with the 
loftiest patriotism, and masters of the art of leadership. 

(/) A supreme command, not only equally conversant 
both with the doctrine that can be gathered from a study 
of the past and with the resources that modern scientific 
and industrial development place at the disposal of the 
fighting men, but consciously cultivating what may be 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 63 

called a prophetic imagination, by which alone future de- 
velopments can be anticipated, and guided throughout, 
and always, by regard to the public interest only. 

The factors that enter are first, material; secondly, men; 
and, thirdly, the intellectual, spiritual, and moral activi- 
ties necessary for shaping and turning the first two to 
their purpose. 

Looked at largely, the elements have been enumerated 
above in the inverse order of their importance. For, 
clearly, the qualities of the ship are much less important 
than the qualities of the weapons that she carries. A 
slow, unarmoured battleship, carrying accurate, quick- 
firing, long-range guns, is a better fleet unit than a fast, 
perfectly protected ship with weapons unlikely to hit, be- 
cause ill-made, poorly mounted, or badly ammunitioned. 
And the power and range of the weapons are less import- 
ant than the science and methods with which they are em- 
ployed. An old 12-inch gun that can be used with con- 
stant effect at 12,000 yards when the change of range is 
high, the target often obscured by smoke, and the firing 
ship constantly under helm, is an infinitely more effective 
weapon than a new 15-inch that, in spite of a legend 
range of 20,000 yards, cannot be made to hit in action 
conditions. And it is from right method that are derived 
right tactics by which, in turn, the decisive massing of 
ships in action is obtained. Again, the best of ships' 
weapons and methods must be absolutely useless unless 
the discipline, moral, and skill of those who use them are 
equal to the strain of fighting. Again, it is highly improb- 
able that you will have good discipline and skill unless you 
have good leaders, for the excellent reason that it is the 
officers who make the men; certainly, if they exist in spite 
of there not being good leaders, weak or heartless leader- 



64 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

ship can throw them altogether away. The Revolution 
robbed the French Navy of nearly all its trained officers 
■ — and, though possessed of better ships and courageous 
crews, that navy never fought with real effect in the Great 
War of from 1792 to 181 5. Again, however excellent 
your ships, weapons, and methods, your moral and your 
courage, unskilful command at sea and ignorance of the 
true principles of tactics may rob you of victory. And, 
lastly, unless those who are responsible for the creation of 
the material and the training of human force, and for the 
chief command and general strategy before and during 
war, are equal to their task unless they keep in close and 
real touch with the active service, not only is it almost 
impossible that a force of very high efficiency can exist, 
but quite impossible that a right direction can be given to 
it in war. 

The reader will very likely detect in the foregoing cate- 
gory of precedence a trite maxim of Napoleon's elaborated 
into a series of sonorous, if illustrative, commonplaces. 
But this is a matter in which, even at the cost of being 
hackneyed, it is absolutely necessary that certain points 
should be clearly established. First, looking at the whole 
subject of sea force as a problem in dynamics, it should 
be constantly before our eyes that a navy is so highly com- 
plex an affair that it can only act rightly when all the 
elements of which it is composed are employed in accord 
with the principles peculiar to each, and are combined so 
that each takes its due place in relation to the rest. It is, 
for example, quite conceivable that you might have a fleet 
or a flotilla equipped with the best material, its personnel 
instructed and expert in the best methods, commanded 
in detail and directed by the chief command according 
to the soundest principles of tactics and strategy, and yet 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 65 

that such a unit might fail in winning its legitimate pur- 
pose, simply because of some failure to base its operations 
on correct data. The omission to provide all the means 
for obtaining intelligence that science and experience sug- 
gest, or, having employed them and got the raw material, 
an inability to interpret and transmit it rightly and 
promptly to the officer in command, might send a fleet 
upon its mission either to the wrong place or at the wrong 
time, or with the wrong dispositions. In considering 
naval science, then, it is, so to speak, axiomatic to recog- 
nize that, as its extent and variety are almost infinite, 
the task of elucidating and teaching its principles and 
their application, so that every person making up the or- 
ganism which is to set the science into action shall act in 
the light of true doctrine, requires an intellectual effort 
of incalculable magnitude, just because the dynamic laws 
governing each element are extraordinarily obscure, and 
because the number of elements is so extraordinarily 
great. To be part perfect, then, may vitiate the whole 
effort. 

But if a whole science must be explored and its principles 
universally inculcated, it would seem as if a wholly unten- 
able ideal was being put forward. But there is no escape 
from this ideal. For the laws of science are ruthless. 
Just as "the wages of sin is death," so is failure the fruit of 
false doctrine. And the cruelty of the things lies in this, 
that what seems an almost infinitesimal infidelity may 
bring a large and noble effort, greatly conceived and gal- 
lantly executed, to disaster. 

The scale of the task prescribes the scale of the instru- 
ments for its discharge. It was clearly beyond the scope 
of a single individual as chief professional adviser to the 
Admiralty, I will not say to solve, but even to keep account 



66 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

of, all the intricate problems which require investigation. 
Indeed, for many years before the war it was fully realized 
that only a properly organized war staff could even make 
a beginning from which a right understanding of naval 
war in modern conditions could derive. The neces- 
sity for this had constantly been urged upon succes- 
sive governments. The matter came to a head when, in 
1909, the Cabinet appointed a committee from its own 
members to consider Lord Charles Beresford's very grave 
statements as to the condition of the Navy. This commit- 
tee never published the evidence by which Lord Charles 
and his associates tried to establish their case. But in 
the course of a brief report which was published they said 
that they had been impressed "with the difference of 
opinion amongst officers of high rank and professional 
attainments regarding important principles of naval 
strategy and tactics, and they look forward with much 
confidence to the further development of a naval war staff, 
from which naval members of the Board and flag officers 
and their staffs at sea may be expected to derive common 
benefit." Observe, that the most experienced officers of the 
day differed with regard to important principles of tactics! 
The technical officers of the navy knew that this absence 
of doctrine "among officers of high rank and professional 
attainments " arose very largely out of a total want of exact 
data as to the precise effect our weapons could be expected 
to have upon the enemy, and the effect the enemy's weap- 
ons could be expected to have upon us. If there was no 
agreement as to how to use weapons there could be no 
agreement as to their value and, without such agreement, 
any common doctrine of tactics must be impossible. And 
with tactics in the melting-pot, strategy must be pure 
guesswork. 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 67 

The 1909 committee had hoped that an extended war 
staff would bring order out of chaos. But by 191 1 there 
had still been nothing done to realize its pious aspirations. 
When Mr. Churchill took office, then, in the autumn of 
that year, he had the conclusions of the Beresford Com- 
mittee to guide him as to the state of strategy and tactics 
and a state of things in the matter of guns, torpedoes, and 
mines, no less than the manifest trend of active naval 
thought, to show where the beginnings of reform must be 
made. 

Mr. Churchill became First Lord in circumstances 
which were very unexpected, and his first public announce- 
ment raised hope to the highest point. For, over the 
date of New Year's Day, 191 2, there was published by 
the First Lord a Memorandum which contained a passage 
on which every optimist fastened. This document defined 
the root need of naval force with masterly precision. 
Coming so soon, expressed with such clarity and convic- 
tion, it seemed to be not so much a collection of eloquent 
and thoughtful sentences logically compacted, but a pro- 
fession of intentions that must definitely turn the current 
of naval life into the only channel that could assure right 
progress. Mr. Churchill, in short, had quite evidently 
grasped the fundamental truth that the whole structure 
of naval war was based upon the mastery of weapons and, 
as evidently, intended the pursuit of this mastery to be 
the watchword of his administration. His actual words 
were as follows ; 

"Unit efficiency — that is to say, the individual fighting 
power of each vessel — is in the sea service for considerable 
periods entirely independent of all external arrangements 
and unit efficiency at sea, far more so than on land, is the 
prime and final factor without which the combinations of 



68 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

strategy and tactics are only the preliminaries of defeat, 
but with which even faulty dispositions can be swiftly 
and decisively retrieved. " 

At last, then, the man and the moment had come to- 
gether. To the new First Lord had been given the vision 
that the moment called for. At last, the consistent, con- 
certed, co-ordinated effort would be made which, proceed- 
ing by investigation, analysis, reason, and experiment, 
would lead us to the root truths of one weapon after an- 
other. When the conditions of action were analyzed and 
the problems they propounded isolated, a measure of our 
capacity to deal with them would be afforded, and not 
only would the points of our incapacity be made clear, 
but the reasons for that incapacity and the character of 
the measures needed for the remedy would be automati- 
cally shown by the analysis. For the first condition for 
solving any problem is its accurate, scientific, and ex- 
haustive statement. And, if the statement is sufficiently 
full, it almost carries the solution with it. Let the prob- 
lems of the gun, torpedo, mine, and submarine once be 
set out in full, and the principles on which we should pro- 
ceed to get the utmost out of them in attack, and the ut- 
most against similar efforts by the enemy in defence, 
would become very clear indeed. In short, when all avail- 
able knowledge was put before those capable of appreciat- 
ing it, weighing it, and drawing from it right deductions, 
progress in a right direction would be assured because, 
for the first time, it would be established on a scientific 
foundation. 

Nor, indeed, was this all. For no such inquisition could 
be made in fundamentals without the work being reflected 
in every other department of naval activity. In place of 
uninstructed conjecture, we should have, as a basis of 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 69 

naval thought and plan, the reasoned conclusions of expert 
knowledge. 

There was the more reason for this optimistic view be- 
cause Mr. Churchill's Memorandum went on to indicate 
the machinery by which alone right methods can invari- 
ably, because together impartially and impersonally, be 
discovered. For the particular occasion of the Memoran- 
dum was the establishment of a new and extended war 
staff for which, since 1904, we had all been waiting. This, 
the First Lord explained, must have four carefully differ- 
entiated but very important tasks. 

It was first, the Memorandum said, "to be the means of 
preparing and training officers for dealing with the ex- 
tended problems that await them in stations of high re- 
sponsibility. " Its second function was to sift, develop, 
and apply the results of history and experience, and to pre- 
serve them "as a general stock of reasoned opinion avail- 
able as an aid and as a guide for all who are called upon 
to determine in peace or war the naval policy of the coun- 
try." Its third function was the exhibition of the vast 
superiority which a well-selected committee of experts 
possesses over even the most brilliant expert working by 
himself. The Staff was to be a "brain far more compre- 
hensive than of any single man, however gifted, and tire- 
less and unceasing in its action, applied continuously to 
the scientific study of naval strategy and preparation. " 
Finally, this Staff, carefully selected from the most prom- 
ising officers, whose work would train them for the highest 
command, making all history and experience the prov- 
ince from which to draw the raw material of its doctrines, 
engaged tirelessly and unceasingly in applying this doc- 
trine to the guidance of the civilian authorities by defining 
the requirements of our war preparation and war strategy, 



7 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

was also to be the executive department through which 
the higher command would issue its authoritative orders. 
"It is to be an instrument capable of formulating any 
decision which has been taken, or may be taken, by the 
executive, in terms of precise and exhaustive detail." 

To those hopefully disposed this departure, then, 
seemed beyond words momentous. For thirty years, 
whatever disagreement there may have been in the navy, 
there was absolute unanimity as to the need of a staff for 
the study of war and the formulation of campaign plans. 
So long as weapons in use could be mastered by the person- 
nel of the ships without dependence on methods of fire 
control and so forth extraneously supplied, this was indeed 
the navy's chief and overmastering need. Had such a 
staff existed even sixteen years ago, it is quite inconceiv- 
able that we could imperceptibly have drifted into depen- 
dence on extraneous methods for the right use of weapons, 
without the staff responsible for preparation for war, 
bringing the fact of this dependence to the notice of its 
chief. And, the principle once recognized that staff or- 
ganization is the only road to infallibility, the institution 
of an additional staff for the study of so vital a matter 
must inevitably have followed. The existence of one 
competent, impartial, and impersonal expert body would 
automatically have resulted in the creation of another. 

But actually when this new staff was so resoundingly 
established at the beginning of 191 2, some amongst the 
optimists began to wonder whether there might not be a 
fly in the ointment of their content. It was pointed out 
that to create a staff for dealing "with the combinations 
of strategy and tactics" before any machinery existed for 
elucidating the essentials of "unit efficiency" did most 
certainly have the air of putting the cart before the horse. 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 71 

But to doubt that this machinery would follow seemed 
too absurd in face of the tremendous emphasis that Mr. 
Churchill had laid upon its necessity. If, without unit 
efficiency, "the combinations of strategy and tactics were 
only the preliminaries of defeat," whereas if it existed a 
position in which tactics had failed, "could be retrieved 
with swiftness and decision," it was manifestly unthink- 
able that such efficiency could be left to chance, or assumed 
to exist on the ipse dixit of any official. Obviously the 
First Lord, having put his hand to the minor and second- 
ary matter, would not delay action at least as drastic in 
the major primary. 

The institution of the War Staff, then, was watched 
with sympathetic interest in the full expectation, not only 
that it must lead to great results, but that it must be fol- 
lowed — as, of course, it should have been preceded — by 
one for fathoming all the potentialities of the means em- 
ployed in the attack and defence of fleets. 

But the War Staff was never put into the position to 
discharge the functions which the 1909 committee had 
designated as its main purpose. So far from being an 
authority equipped for the exhaustive study of war and 
how to prepare for it, the whole apparatus of fighting was 
carefully excluded from its purview. It had no connection 
with the departments administering gunnery, torpedoes, 
submarines, aircraft, or mines. As to some of these activ- 
ities, there were as a fact no departments solely charged 
with their control before the War Staff was instituted. 
They were not entrusted to the War Staff. And no new 
staffs were created! If the strategical vagueness, to 
which the Beresford Committee had borne witness in 
1909, arose largely, as many supposed, from the uncer- 
tain state of naval technique, then, so far as the War 



72 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Staff was concerned, this vagueness had to continue — for 
technique was not their concern. 

The consequences were demonstrated in many striking 
ways as the war progressed. But not the least curious re- 
sult was the confusion that arose as to the offensive and 
defensive aspects of naval strategy and preparation. In 
the debate on the Naval Estimates of 1916 a violent attack 
on Admiralty policy by Mr. Churchill left Mr. Balfour 
with no alternative but to break the brutal truth to us 
that, at the outbreak of war, we had not a single subma- 
rine-proof harbour on the East Coast. Reflect for a min- 
ute what this means. In the years which have elapsed 
since Lord Fisher came to the Admiralty as First Sea 
Lord, two altogether revolutionary changes have been made 
in naval war. 

1. Until 1904 the 12-inch guns of our battleships were 
weapons that no one would have thought of using beyond 
the range of 4,000 yards. The identical guns have been 
used in this war at 11,000, 12,000, and 13,000 yards. The 
advance in range owes nothing to improvements in the 
gun. It has been brought about by improvements in 
sights, in range-finders, and in the organization called 
fire control. 

2. Again, in 1904 the submarine, or submersible torpedo- 
carrying boat, had indeed been proved to be a practical 
instrument for war, but was still in its infancy. By 1907, 
when Captain Murray Sueter wrote his well-known work 
on the subject, it had become obvious that the tactics 
of battle, no less than the defence of fleets, stood to be 
completely changed by its actual and probable develop- 
ments. 

Now every new engine of war — and as a long-range 
weapon the modern gun is such — creates a double problem. 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 73 

There is the art of using it in attack; there is the art of 
countering it when it is in the enemy's hands. With 
every new development, then, the Navy has to learn a new 
offensive and a new defensive. In the matter of guns, 
there is but one defensive that can be perfectly successful. 
It is to develop a method of using them so rapid, so in- 
sistent, and so accurate that the enemy's guns will be out 
of action before they can be employed against us. Failing 
this there is a secondary defensive, viz., to protect ships 
by armour. Finally, you may keep out of range of the 
enemy's guns by turning or running away. The adoption 
of armour calls for no perfection either of tactical organi- 
zation or technical practice. It is a matter which can be 
left to the metallurgists, engineers, and constructors. The 
purely naval policy, then, would have been either to de- 
velop the use of guns offensively, which, as we have seen, 
must also be the best defence, or with a purely defensive 
idea, solely to enjoin the tactic that will avoid the risks 
inseparable from coming under the enemy's fire. To the 
country that was completing nearly two battleships to 
any other country's one, that aspired to command the sea, 
that hoped to be able to blow any enemy fleet out of the 
water if it got the chance, it would seem obvious that 
there could be only one gunnery policy; to wit, push the 
offensive to the highest possible extent. 

Again, the distinguishing feature of submarines is their 
capacity to approach the strongest of vessels unseen and 
then, in waters superficially under hostile command, to 
strike with the most deadly of all weapons. As they 
gained in speed and radius of action, it became obvious 
that wherever a fleet might be — whether at sea or in har- 
bour — it must, unless it were protected by effective pas- 
sive defences while in harbour, and by numerous mobile 



74 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

guards when at sea, be exposed to this insidious and, if 
successful, deadly form of attack. 

The basic supposition of British naval policy has been 
to maintain a fleet sufficiently powerful to drive all en- 
emy's craft within his harbours and defences. The prop- 
osition has only to be stated for it to be clear that the 
navy could not have expected, except in rare circumstances, 
to have any targets for its submarines, whereas it was as 
certain as any future thing could be, that every British 
ship would be a constant target for the enemy's subma- 
rines. British policy in regard to submarine war should, 
then, have been mainly, if, indeed, not wholly, defensive. 

Thus, if there was one form of offensive imperatively 
imposed on us, it was that of naval artillery; and if there 
was one form of defensive not less imperatively incumbent, 
it was the provision of adequate protection against sub- 
marines. 

It is now, of course, common knowledge that it was ex- 
actly in these two particulars that Admiralty policy from 
1904-1914 was either discontinuous, vacillating, and 
self-contradictory, or simply non-existent. So far as it 
cultivated anything, it was a defensive tactic for the gun 
and offensive tactics for the submarine! On the latter 
point let the non-provision of a safe anchorage on the 
Northeast coast stand for the whole. If you pick up a 
Navy List for any month in any year prior to August, 
1914, you will look in vain for any department of White- 
hall, any establishment at a principal port, any appoint- 
ment of flag officer or captain, to prove that there was at 
any time an individual or a committee charged with the 
vital problem of protecting the British Fleet against enemy 
submarines when war broke out. The necessity had in- 
deed been realized. It was set out by Captain Sueter in 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 75 

1907. It had been urged on the Board of Admiralty. 
But no action was taken. 

This, of course, was bad enough. The case of gunnery 
was worse, for if you compare the Navy List of August, 
1914, with that of the corresponding month of the year 
that Mr. Churchill took office, you will find that it was to 
his administration that we owe the abolition of the only 
officer and department in the navy competent to advise or 
direct methods of gunnery adequate for war. From 1908 
to 1 91 3 the Inspectorship of Target Practice had been 
effective in giving shape, and to some extent, a voice, to 
the alarm, anxiety, and indignation of the navy at the 
manner in which gunnery administration boxed the com- 
pass of conflicting policies. With the suppression of the 
office there came administrative peace — and technical 
chaos. 

Why were not these problems, each and all of them, 
thoroughly investigated and their solutions discovered 
before war began ? 

Mr. Churchill supplies us with the answer. He closes 
his article in the London Magazine of September, 1916, 
with a protest against naval operations being more criti- 
cally and even captiously judged than military operations. 
They are so judged, he tells us, because of the apparent 
simplicity of a naval battle, and the obvious character of 
any disaster that happens to any unit of a fleet. Regi- 
ments may be thrown away upon land and no one be any 
the wiser, but to lose a ship is an event about which there 
can be no dispute. It is regarded as a disaster, and at 
once somebody, it is assumed, must be to blame. This 
is hard measure on the seaman. Surely, an admiral, he 
tells us, has a greater claim upon the generosity of his 
countrymen than a general. "His warfare is almost 



76 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

entirely novel. Scarcely one had ever had any experience 
of sea fighting. All had to learn the strange new, un- 
measured, and, in times of peace, largely immeasurable 
conditions" 

Now this is really a very striking admission. Whence 
arose this theory that naval warfare consisted of un- 
fathomable mysteries? Perhaps the explanation is as 
follows : Popular interest in the navy was first thoroughly 
aroused by Mr. Stead's Pall Mall articles in the middle 
eighties. It is from the controversies that he aroused 
that Brassey's and the other annual naval publications 
emerged. For twenty years newspaper interest in ship- 
building programmes, design, and so forth, advanced in 
a crescendo of intensity. The many and startling de- 
partures in naval policy that characterized Lord Fisher's 
tenure of the first professional place on the Board of 
Admiralty, brought this interest to a climax. There was 
a controversial demand for more costly programmes 
involving political and journalistic opposition, which in 
turn provoked greater vigour in those that advocated 
them. Thus the whole of naval policy had to be com- 
mended to popular — and civilian — judgment. And it 
followed that the advocates of expansion had to employ 
arguments that civilians could understand. They very 
soon perceived that success lay along the line of sensa- 
tionalism. Larger and faster ships, heavier and longer 
range guns carrying bigger and more devastating shells, 
faster and more terrifying torpedoes, those new craft of 
weird mystery, the submarines — all these things in turn 
and for considerable periods were urged upon the public 
and the statesmen in terms of awe and wonder. But the 
Augurs, instead of winking behind the veil, came finally 
to be hypnotized by their own wonder talk. Who can- 



ELEMENTS OF SEA FORCE 77 

not remember that ever-recurring phrase, "the untold 
possibilities" of the new engines of war? They got to be 
so convinced on this subject that they made no effort to 
find out precisely what the possibilities were, and Mr. 
Churchill's phrase that I have just quoted, "the strange 
new, unmeasured, and largely immeasurable conditions," 
exactly summed up the frame of mind of those who were 
responsible for naval policy up to and including Mr. 
Churchill's time. If all these problems were insoluble, 
if the conditions were immeasurable, if the possibilities 
of new weapons were really untold and untellable, what 
was the use of worrying about experiment and knowledge, 
judgment and expertize? It was this frame of mind that 
led a humorist to suggest that the materialists ought 
really to be called the spiritualists. 

It was all very unfortunate, because any rightly organ- 
ized system of inquiry, investigation, and experiment, 
would have dissipated this atmosphere of mystery once 
and for all. When new inventions are made that affect 
the processes of industry, it is not the men who go about 
talking of their "untold possibilities," their "incalculable" 
effects, and their "immeasurable" results, that get the 
commercial advantage of their development. It is those 
who take immediate steps to investigate the limits of 
their action and the precise scope of their operations who 
turn new discoveries to account. To talk as if the per- 
formance of guns, torpedoes, submarines, and aircraft 
were beyond human calculation, was really a confession 
of incompetence. The application to these things of the 
principles of inquiry universally employed in other fields 
was always perfectly simple, and had it been employed 
we should not have begun the war with wondering what 
we could do, but knowing precisely what we ought to do. 



78 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

It was want of preparation in these matters that was un- 
doubtedly one of the deciding factors in tying us down 
both to defensive strategy and to defensive tactics. 

Once grasp what are the possibilities open to the 
enemy's armed forces; once realize the scope the mine 
and torpedo possess; once analyze their influence both 
on strategy and on tactics, with the new problems that 
they create both for cruising force and for naval artillery 
in action, and it becomes exceedingly clear what it is that 
your own fleet must be prepared to do. Had these things 
been realized at any time between 191 1 and 1914, should 
we have had our own naval bases unprotected against 
submarine attack? Should we have been without any or- 
ganization for using mines offensively against the enemy? 
Still more, should we have been practically without any 
means whatever of preventing the enemy using mines 
against us? We should have had a fleet composed of 
different units, organized, trained, and equipped in a 
very different way. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Actions 

The naval operations suggested and described in the 
following chapters are the surprise attack that Germany 
did not deliver, the destruction of Koenigsberg, the capture 
of Emden, Cradock's heroic self-sacrifice off Coronel, the 
destruction of Von Spee's squadron off the Falkland 
Islands, the affair of the Heligoland Bight, the pursuit of 
Von Hipper across the Dogger Bank, the battle of Jutland, 
and finally, the operations carried out against Zeebrugge 
and Ostend in the fourth year of the war. I have not in 
these chapters followed strict chronological order, but 
have arranged them so as to present the problems of sea 
fighting as they arise in a crescendo of interest and com- 
plexity. 

Modern war is fought in conditions to which history 
offers no parallel. Both the British and German Govern- 
ments have maintained the strictest reserve in regard 
to every operation. When one reads the despatches it is 
quite obvious to the least instructed student of war, that 
their publication has been guided by the consciousness 
that within two or three days of issue the text would be 
in the enemy's hands. Every atom of information, then, 
that could be of the slightest value to the Germans has 
been ruthlessly excised, with results to a great extent 
ruinous to lay comprehension of the events described. 
This being so, I wish it clearly to be understood that every 
opinion or judgment expressed in these chapters must 

79 



80 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

obviously be subject to modification and revision when 
further information becomes available. Generally speak- 
ing, too, the plans I have included with the text have no 
pretence whatever to be authentic, but are presented 
simply as diagrammatic ways of making the text in- 
telligible. No more can be claimed for them than that 
they should not be inconsistent with the information 
officially given. The plans of the Falkland Islands 
engagements are the only exceptions. These I believe 
to be substantially correct. 

In the destruction of Koenigsberg the main interest 
is the solution of a gunnery problem in itself not very 
intricate, if once the means of carrying it out exist and 
the right method of procedure is recognized. But in the 
actual operations the men on the spot had to do an 
immense number of things before the problem could be 
tackled at all, and in the solution of the gunnery problem 
they had to learn from the beginning and so discover, 
from their failure at the first attempt, the method which 
was so brilliantly successful on the second. In this re- 
spect the story isolates a single and, as I have said, a 
simple problem in gunnery and illustrates what is meant 
by right technique. Apart from this, the story is full of 
human interest and exhibits the exceptional advantages 
which naval training gives to those who have to ex- 
temporize methods of dealing with circumstances and 
difficulties without the guidance of experience. 

In the Sydney-Emden engagement we have a very good 
example of the modern single ship action. Not the least 
of its points of interest is that Sydney seems to have lost 
her rangefinder a very few minutes after the action began. 
At first sight it would seem to be an absolutely disabling 
loss. In some quarters more emphasis has been laid on 



THE ACTIONS 81 

the value of a good rangefinder to fire control than to any 
other element of that highly debated branch of naval 
science. But in this engagement, as in that of Koenigs- 
berg, the enemy was destroyed by a ship that did not use 
a rangefinder at all. The action thus not only shows 
the place which the observation of fire takes in the art 
of sea fighting, but illustrates in the highest degree the 
value of long practice in gunnery. Since 1905 every 
commissioned ship in the fleet has worked assiduously 
on this problem, and, whether the methods in use have 
been good, bad, or indifferent, this practice produced a 
race of officers extraordinarily well equipped for dealing 
with fire control as a practical problem. It is highly 
probable, if the methods and instruments they have been 
given have not always been of the best, that this fact, by 
throwing them on their own resources, did much to 
stimulate that singular capacity for extemporization 
which we shall see illustrated in the Koenigsberg business. 
Moreover, this is a faculty in which our officers seem to 
excel the Gemans greatly. In this fight, as in so many 
others, it was the enemy who first opened fire, and it was 
his opening salvoes that were the most accurate. But 
the enemy has seldom kept this initial advantage, whereas 
we shall generally find the British personnel improving 
as the action proceeds. It would appear, then, that as 
the material suffers the Germans, who are most dependent 
on it, have on the whole shown less resource than our own 
officers. 

In the action off Coronel the heroic self-sacrifice of the 
British force overlays the technical interest. In one 
respect it is altogether unique, for it is the only action 
in this war in which the weaker and faster squadron 
sought action with one of incalculably greater fighting 



82 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

power but of inferior speed. Neither side seems to have 
manoeuvred in a way that would have added to the 
difficulties of fire control, but as, apart from manoeuvring, 
the shooting conditions were extraordinarily difficult, one 
is forced to the conclusion that the deciding factor was 
less the great superiority of the enemy's force, as measured 
by the weight of his broadsides, than the still more marked 
superiority that arose from his having a more modern 
and more homogeneous armament. 

At the Falkland Islands the all-big-gun ship appeared 
for the first time in a sea action and, although opposed 
by vessels whose armament was no match for such heavy 
metal, it was actually employed according to the tactics 
officially set out as the basis of the Dreadnought idea in 
design; the tactics, that is to say, of keeping away from an 
enemy, so as to maintain a range favourable to the more 
powerfully gunned ship. The battle resolved itself into 
three separate actions, and it was on this principle that Sir 
Doveton Sturdee fought the Graf von Spee and his two 
battle-cruisers, and that the Captain of the Cornwall en- 
gaged Leipzig. But, curiously enough, in the engagement 
between Kent and Niirnberg a different principle is seen 
at work. Captain Allen pursued at full speed until he had 
crippled the enemy's engines, and then, as his speed fell 
off, continued to close till he was able to silence him alto- 
gether at a range of 3,000 yards. Thus on a single day 
two diametrically opposed tactical doctrines were exem- 
plified by officers under a single command. 

In each of these four actions the tactics of the gun 
escaped complication by the distractions and difficulties 
which torpedo attack imposes on long-range gunnery. In 
our next action, the affair off Heligoland, the torpedo 
figures largely, because visibility was limited to about 



,THE ACTIONS 83 

■4. 

6,000 yards. The affair off Heligoland cannot be de- 
scribed as an engagement. It was primarily a reconnais- 
sance in force developed into a series of skirmishes and 
single ship actions, which began at seven in the morning 
and ended at mid-day. Submarines, destroyers, cruisers 
of several types and, finally, battle-cruisers, were employed 
on the British side. There were sharp artillery engage- 
ments between destroyers, there were torpedo attacks 
made by destroyers on light cruisers and by submarines 
on battle-cruisers. But they were not massed attacks 
on ships in formation, but isolated efforts at marksman- 
ship, and they were all of them unsuccessful. This failure 
of the torpedo as a weapon of precision is of considerable 
technical interest. The light thrown on gunnery problems 
by the events of the day is less easy to define. The chief 
interest of this raid into the Bight lies in the strategical 
idea which prompted it and in its moral effects on the 
British and German naval forces. That Sir David Beatty, 
in command of four battle-cruisers, should coolly have 
challenged the German Fleet to fight and that this challenge 
was not accepted, was extremely significant. It was of 
special value to our side, for it showed the British Navy 
to possess a naval leader who knew how to combine dash 
and caution and marked by a talent for leadership as con- 
spicuous as the personal bravery which had won him his 
early promotions. 

These qualities were still better displayed in the engage- 
ment off the Dogger Bank. This action is remarkable in 
several respects. For the first time destroyers were here 
employed to make massed torpedo attacks on a squadron 
of capital ships. The particular defensive functions of 
such torpedo attacks will be discussed in the proper place. 
Suffice it to say here that no torpedo hit, but that the 



84 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

British were robbed of victory by a chance shot which 
disabled Sir David Beatty's flagship, and deprived the 
squadron of its leader when bold leadership was most 
needed. Why the action was broken off by Rear-Admiral 
Moore, who succeeded to the command, has never been 
explained, and the unfortunate wording of an Admiralty 
communique gave the world for some time an impression 
that Sir David Beatty — of all people — had retreated from 
the threat of German submarines. 

The battle of Jutland eclipses in technical interest all 
the other engagements put together. It presents, of 
course on a far larger scale, all the problems hitherto met 
separately. We are still far too imperfectly informed as 
to many of the incidents of this battle for it to be possible 
to attempt any complete analysis of its tactics, or to indi- 
cate the line on which judgment will ultimately declare 
itself. We are, for example, entirely without information 
either about the method of deployment prescribed by the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet at six o'clock, 
or of the theory on which the night attack by the destroyer 
on the retreating German Fleet was ordered. We do not 
know how it was that a misunderstanding 1 arose between 
the battle-cruiser fleet and the battle fleet as to the time 
and place of junction, nor the arrangements which resulted 
in contact with the German Fleet being lost after the action 
was over. It is, therefore, only possible to discuss those 
points on which light has been thrown by the despatch, 
and the principles of action which the Commander-in- 

1 The positions of the two fleets at six o'clock had been estimated by dead 
reckoning, both in Lion and in Iron Duke. The two reckonings did not agree 
and the Commander-in-Chief said in the despatch that such a discrepancy- 
was inevitable. The word "misunderstanding" in the text must not be taken 
to mean that the calculation in either fleet was avoidable, still less repre- 
hensibly, wrong. - 



THE ACTIONS 85 

Chief has set out in various speeches delivered after he had 
ceased to command at sea. 

In the engagement off the Falkland Islands, it will be 
remembered that there was a marked contrast between the 
tactical methods followed in the pursuit of Von Spee and 
those adopted by Captain Allen in his pursuit of Nilrnb erg. 
In the battle of Jutland we shall find a still more marked 
contrast between the strategic concentions of the two, 
leaders of the British forces* 

Admiral Beatty seems to have acted throughout as if 
the enemy should be brought to battle and destroyed, al- 
most regardless of risk. The Commander-in-Chief of the 
Grand Fleet seems to have been willing to engage only 
if he could do so without jeopardizing the forces under his 
command. The one was bent on victory, the other seemed 
satisfied — so long as the enemy were thwarted in any ul- 
terior purpose — if only the British Fleet were saved from 
losses. 

It followed from such very opposite views, that their 
tactical methods differed also. At each stage of the ac- 
tion Sir David Beatty's tactic was to get his forces into 
action at the first possible moment and to keep them in 
action as long as possible. Thus when the news first 
reaches him that the enemy is to the northeast, he leads 
his whole fleet at top speed straight for the Horn Reef to 
get between him and his base. And this he does without 
waiting for any information about the composition of the' 
enemy's force. Whether it is the battle-cruiser and light 
forces only, or the whole German Fleet, his first idea is to 
make sure that he is in a position to engage if he wishes to. 
As it was at 3 :o p.m., so it was at each stage after he got 
into action. The reduction of his squadron by one third 
does not seem to have upset the coolness of his judgment 



86 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

or the firmness of his determination in the least degree. 
When he found himself opposed, no longer by five battle- 
cruisers, but by sixteen Dreadnought battleships as well, 
he reversed the course of the fleet, made Evan Thomas 
fall in behind him, and, during a holding action for the 
next hour, kept the Germans under his guns, risking their 
fire, threatening the head of their line, and half-cajoling, 
half-forcing Scheer northward to where the British fleets 
would be united. The moment contact becomes immi- 
nent — knowing that the light might at any moment fail — 
he forces the pace and discounts risks incalculably greater 
than at any time during the day, if only the enormous 
striking power of the Grand Fleet can be brought for once 
into action as a whole. And so, regardless of the punish- 
ment his fleet had received earlier in the day, he shortens 
the range from 14,000 yards to 12,000 and then from 
12,000 to 8,000, in a last effort to hold the enemy, while 
the Grand Fleet deploys and comes into action. There 
is no foolhardiness in his tactics, for the speed that enables 
him to head the German line is not only the best defence 
of his own squadron against torpedo attack. He has 
made it almost impossible for the German destroyers to 
enfilade the Grand Fleet, if only it deploys at full speed 
on him. He knows, of course, that at 8,000 yards the 
side armour of his ships will not keep out the enemy's 
shells. But he has demoralized the German gunfire by 
his own once before and, confident in the superior coolness 
and nerve of his officers and crews, he relies on this element 
again as the best defence of his squadron. 

It is not till 6:50, when he realizes that his whole effort 
has miscarried, that he makes the entry in his despatch 
which seems to me one of the most tragic phrases ever 
used by a great master of fighting. He had been baulked 



THE ACTIONS 87 

of victory at the Dogger Bank by a chance injury to his 
ship, when his squadron came under the command of an 
Admiral trained in the tenets of Whitehall. Now on 
May 31 he had executed a master stroke of tactics. The 
armoured cruiser, designed to be a swift bully over the 
weak, he had used to confound and paralyze the strong. 
There had been many a discussion as to the tactical value 
of speed when the Dreadnought type was first designed, 
but no thinker had had the daring to forecast any such 
stroke as Sir David Beatty planned and executed off the 
Jutland Reefs. But it was a stroke struck in vain. "By 
6:50 the battle-cruisers were clear of our leading Battle 
Squadron, then bearing about north northwest three 
miles and I . . . reduced to 18 knots." 

There was no more to try for that day. When, a quar- 
ter of an hour afterwards, the Grand Fleet starts south, 
he hunts for and heads the German line again. But it is 
all to no purpose. Yet he does not give up hope. At 
half-past nine darkness makes further pursuit impossible, 
but at any rate "our strategical position was such as to 
make it appear certain that we should locate the enemy 
at daylight under most favourable circumstances. It 
is plain, then, that he had a plan for next day's battle, 
just as he had had one for the hard and costly day just 
passed. To the last the thought still preoccupies him 
that has been his guide throughout. The enemy must be 
found and destroyed. 

The Commander-in-Chief, however, whatever his anx- 
iety for victory, is plainly concerned throughout by the 
enormous responsibility that weighs upon him as the 
guardian of the fleet under his command. Only one of 
the ships was hit by gunfire and only one was struck by 
torpedo! In summing up the story of the day, "the 



88 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

hardest fighting," he says, "fell to the lot of the Battle 
Cruiser Fleet ... the Fifth Battle Squadron, the First 
Cruiser Squadron, the Fourth Light Cruiser Squadron, 
and the flotillas." But he must add a note, that the units 
of the Battle Cruiser Fleet were less heavily armoured 
than their opponents! The obsession of the defensive 
idea is obvious. "The enemy constantly turned away 
and opened the range under cover of destroyer attacks 
and smoke screens." "The German Fleet appeared to 
rely very much on torpedo attacks, which were favoured 
by low visibility, and by the fact that we had arrived in 
the position of a 'following' or l chasing' fleet. A 
large number of torpedoes were apparently fired, but only 
one took effect (on Marlborough) , and even in this case 
the ship was able to remain in the line and to continue the 
action." 

"The enemy opened the range under cover of destroyer 
attacks . . . which were favoured by the fact . . . 
that we had arrived in the position of a ' following . . . 
fleet." Had Admiral Jerram's squadron followed full speed 
straight into the wake of the battle-cruisers, had the whole 
Grand Fleet deployed on Sir David Beatty's track, the 
enemy's business should have been finished, for Scheer 
never could have turned under such a concentration of fire. 
But the form of the deployment created the situation 
that Scheer needed. It exposed the fleet to the torpedoes. 
And the risk was not faced. Speaking eight months 
afterwards at the Fishmongers' Hall, Admiral Jellicoe 
explained why. "The torpedo, as fired from surface 
vessels, is effective certainly up to 10,000 yards range, 
and this requires that a ship shall keep beyond this distance 
to fight her guns. As conditions of visibility, in the North 
Sea particularly, are frequently such as to make fighting 



THE ACTIONS 89 

difficult beyond a range of 10,000 yards, and as modern 
fleets are invariably accompanied by very large numbers 
of destroyers, whose main duty is to attack with torpedoes 
the heavy ships of the enemy, it will be recognized how 
great becomes the responsibility of the Admiral in com- 
mand of a fleet, particularly under the conditions of low 
visibility to which I have referred. As soon as destroyers 
tumble upon a fleet within torpedo range the situation 
becomes critical for the heavy ships. 93 

At Jutland three British and one German battle-cruiser 
were sunk by gunfire. At Dogger Bank Lion was dis- 
abled by a chance shot. Ten German battleships and 
one British were struck by torpedoes on May 31. One of 
these, one only, and she in all probability hit simul- 
taneously by several, blew up. The other nine German 
ships and Marlborough all reached port in safety. Surely, 
if the situation of heavy ships is "critical" when within 
torpedo range, their situation when within reach of heavy 
guns must be more critical still. Is it possible to dis- 
tinguish and say that one form of risk is always, and the 
other never, to be run? Is not the issue identical with 
that raised by the abandonment of the Dogger Bank 
pursuit — if it is true that pursuit was abandoned, as the 
Admiralty told us, on account of the presence of sub- 
marines ? 

At any rate, we see in this attitude one that stands in 
sharp contrast to Sir David Beatty's. He had faced 
torpedo attack in the Bight of Heligoland, and submarine 
attack in the Dogger Bank affair, and seemingly in the 
early fighting of May 31, without allowing the menace 
to influence him to avoid action. He took the right 
precautions against it. He had his cruisers and flotillas 
out as a screen, but having done all that was humanly 



9 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

possible to parry the attack he then, with a clear con- 
science, went for victory. 

The same contrast is seen in the events of June I. Sir 
John Jellicoe was perfectly willing to fight if the Germans 
would come out and fight on his conditions. At 4:0 A. M. an 
enemy Zeppelin flew over the fleet, so that its position 
was known to Scheer. Yet says the Commander-in- 
Chief, "the enemy made no sign." His own pre-occupa- 
tion is not to find the enemy, but his own light forces. 
He thinks it worth recording that he hung about the scene 
of the yesterday's battle, "in spite of the . . . danger 
incurred in waters adjacent to enemy coasts from sub- 
marine and torpedo craft." Napoleon speaks bitterly 
of his admirals, who acted as though they could win vic- 
tory without taking risks. 

A strong case can, of course, be made for the doctrine 
on which Sir John Jellicoe acted on these two days, a 
doctrine endorsed by the Admiralty, so far at least as it 
was shown in action on the first and only opportunity 
the British Fleet was given of utterly destroying the enemy. 
The defence can hardly be put better than it was by Mr. 
Churchill in his London Magazine article. Nor am I 
concerned here to argue the pros and cons on a point on 
which there can be little doubt as to the judgment of 
posterity. I direct attention to the singular fact that 
the British Fleet on May 31 fought as two separate units 
until six o'clock, and that the leaders of the two sections 
were animated by conflicting theories of war. One 
admiral represents the fighting fervour of the fleet: the 
other the caution — perhaps the wise caution — of the 
Higher Command. 

There is no getting out of this dilemma. If Admiral 
Jellicoe was right in refusing to face the risks inseparable 



THE ACTIONS 91 

from a resolute effort to make the battle decisive, then 
Sir David Beatty must have been wrong to have fought 
in a way which cannot be intelligently explained except 
on the basis that from first to last he had decisive victory 
as his object. If the tender care that brought the Grand 
Fleet through the action with hardly a man killed and 
only two ships touched, was right and wise, then the 
clear vision, all the more luminous for seeing and count- 
ing the cost, which exposed Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and 
Invincible to destruction, was woefully wrong. Now it 
seems extraordinary, if the strategy of waiting to fight 
till the Germans attacked was right — if this was the 
Admiralty doctrine — that it was not communicated to 
Sir David Beatty as well as to Sir John Jellicoe. If it was 
axiomatic to avoid the risk of ships being destroyed, so 
that Admiral Moore was right to break off the action at 
the Dogger Bank and Admiral Jellicoe right in letting 
the enemy "open the range under the cover of torpedo 
attacks," why was not Admiral Beatty forbidden to 
jeopardize his ships, and Admiral Arbuthnot warned 
against any pursuit of the enemy's cruisers or destroyers, 
that might possibly bring him within range of the German 
gunfire? How are we to explain Bingham's attack on 
the head of the German line or Goodenough's reconnais- 
sance which brought him under the salvoes of the German 
guns at 12,000 yards? Is the doctrine of caution and 
ship conservation to apply only to battleships and not 
to battle-cruisers, armoured cruisers, light cruisers, and 
destroyers? Is it only the battle fleet that is not to fight 
except when it risks practically nothing by doing so? 
All these questions are forced to the student's attention 
When he reviews the events here recorded. 

Many defects in our preparations for war have been 



92 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

attributed to our lack of staff machinery in the years 
preceding the war. The defenceless state of the fleet's 
bases, the absence of any policy for using mines, or the 
means for carrying one out, the contrast between our 
pre-war confidence in our gunnery methods and what they 
have achieved in action, these and a score of other de- 
ficiencies have been attributed, and probably rightly, to 
our failure to appreciate the fact that modern war is so 
various and complicated a thing, and employs instruments 
and weapons and methods, the full possibilities of which 
are so obscure that only a long concerted effort could 
analyze and unravel them, that no organ except a General 
Staff could possibly have laid down the right doctrine of 
war or ensured the means of its application. But of all 
the evidence of what we had lost by its absence, I know 
of none more striking than that from the outbreak of war 
until Sir David Beatty took command of the whole main 
forces of the navy, those forces should have been divided, 
and the two divisions commanded by men whose views 
as to the main purpose for which the force existed were 
utterly incompatible. It is amazing that Whitehall 
either never knew that this divergency of doctrine existed, 
or, knowing it, should not have secured that one or the 
other doctrine should predominate. 

No official despatches descriptive of the attacks on 
Zeebriigge and Ostend have been published. For these 
extraordinary events, then, we have to rely upon the 
stories officially given out by the Admiralty's descriptive 
writer and the interviews which the officers concerned 
were allowed to give to different journalists. 



CHAPTER VII 

i. Naval Gunnery, Weapons, and Technique 

Before passing to the actions, it is important to have a 
clear idea of two things which these actions illustrate. 
The first is the nature of the advantage which heavy guns 
have over lighter pieces. In each of these actions the 
side which had the largest number of heavier guns, or 
generally heavier guns, was successful. A heavy shell 
obviously has far greater effect than a light shell when it 
hits. Its advantages in this respect do not need demon- 
stration. It is as well, however, to make it quite clear 
why it is more probable that a heavy shell will hit. 

And next, these actions illustrate the great advance in 
fire control which has been made in the last ten years, and 
they also show, and I think convincingly, the limitations 
of the systems in use. As my comments on these actions 
will be particularly directed towards showing the tactical 
developments that have followed on the advance of gun- 
nery and towards what further tactical developments 
must follow from a greater advance, it is essential that the 
nature of the fire-control problem should be understood. 

The principle of heavy guns being superior at long range 
is exemplified by the Sketches i and 2. Sketch i repre- 
sents the manner in which a salvo of guns may be ex- 
pected to spread if all the sights are set to the same range. 
All guns lose in range accuracy as the range increases, but 
light guns more than heavy. If six 6-inch guns are fired 
at a target at 12,000 yards the shell will be apt to be spread 

93 



94 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

out as shown in the top line. Six 9.2's will fall in a closer 
pattern, as shown in the second line, six 12-inch in a still 
smaller space, and the 13.5 in one still smaller. Regarded 
simply as instruments for obtaining a pattern at a given 
range, heavy guns are, therefore, far more effective than 
light ones. 

But this is far from being the heavy guns' only advant- 
age, as will be seen from Sketch 2. The heavier the pro- 






Q „ 


<? 


6" 
92" 
12" 
13 5" 




.0O0 




(?oW QO 


W)Jfi) 





Big guns more accurate at long range, because more regular 

jectile is, the longer it retains its velocity. The angle at 
which a shot falls from any height depends solely upon 
its forward velocity while it is falling. Sketch 2 shows 
the outline of a ship broadside on to the enemy's fire, the 
shell being fired from the right-hand of the sketch. A is 
the point where the ship's side meets the water. If the 
gun were shooting perfectly accurately and was set to 
10,000 yards, all the shots would hit at this point. And 
clearly any shot set at a range greater than this, but one 
which did not carry the shot over the target, would hit 



NAVAL GUNNERY 



95 



the ship somewhere between the points A and X. Now 
if a 6-inch shot grazes the point X and falls into the water, 
it falls at the point B beyond the ship. But the angle at 
which it is falling is so steep that the difference in range 
between the point A and the point B is only forty yards. 
To hit, then, with a 6-inch gun the range must be known 
within forty yards. This interval is called the "Danger 
Space." 

The 9.2 will fall at a more gradual angle, and the shot 
grazing on X will fall at C, which is twenty yards beyond 













? 






X 

\ 


\j2 


a 


/ 6 

9^> y 


•£- 


IV51. 












1 


W 




a" 


17 
9-2 


' ' 


6 












E 




D 




c 


B 




A 






10150 


10100 


10060 10040 


10000 yds. 







Big guns need less accurate range-finding, because the danger space 

is greater 

B; and a 12-inch shell, falling still more gradually, will 
fall at D, which is 100 yards from A; and similarly the 13.5 
at E, which is 150 yards beyond it. Hence, at any given 
range, far more accurate knowledge of range is necessary 
for hitting with a 6-inch gun than with a 9.2, with a 9.2 
than with a 12-inch, and with a 12-inch than with a 13.5. 
But we have seen from Sketch 1 that, in proportion as 1 
the range gets long, so does the range accuracy of the gun 
decrease, and that this loss of accuracy is greater in small 
guns than in bigger. To hit with it at all a more perfect 
fire control is necessary, and for any given number of 



96 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

rounds a much smaller proportion of hits will be made. 
The advantage of the big gun over the small, merely as a 
hitting weapon, is twofold, It does not require such ac- 
curacy in setting the sight, and more shots fired within 
these limits will hit. 

FIRE CONTROL 

If ships only engaged when they were stationary the 
range would not change, and it could be found by obser- 
vation without rangefinders. And even with rangefinders 
it can never be found at great distances without observa- 
tion. But ships do not stand still, and when they move 
the distance between them alters from second to second. 
If these movements could be (i) ascertained, (2) integrated, 
and (3) the results impressed upon the sight, change of 
range would be eliminated, and we should have come back 
to the conditions in which ships were stationary. Fire 
control is successful in so far as it succeeds in doing these 
three things. Sketches 3 and 4 show the process by which 
hits are secured, when the conditions are not complicated 
by changes in the range, that is, if these complications 
have been eliminated by fire control. The second two 
illustrate what these complications are. The ships turn 
away from each other and then turn towards each other. 

The rate graph (6) shows the efFect of these movements 
on the range and the rate at which it is changing from 
moment to moment. 

The process shown in Sketches 3 and 4 is called "brack- 
eting." Two shots are fired at a difference of, say, 800 
yards. Observation shows the first to be too short, the 
second to be too far. The difference is bisected by the 
third shot. This places the target in one of the halves 
of the bracket. This half is bisected by the fourth shot, 



NAVAL GUNNERY 97 

placing the target in a quarter. If an eighth of the bracket 
is less than the danger space, then the fifth shot must hit. 
In Sketch 5 the ships keep parallel courses for two min- 
utes. The range does not change. The line in the graph 
(6) is, for these two minutes, horizontal. It is as if both 
were stationary. When the ships turn the range increases 
and the graph rises. But the graph is not a straight line 




Range-finding by bracket 

but a curve. This shows that the rate also is changing. 
Each movement of the two ships, whether they keep 
steady courses or turn, alters the range and the rate. As 
projectiles take an interval of time to travel from the gun 
to the target, the range must be forecasted. B, then, can- 
not engage A unless he knows where A is going to be. He 
cannot know this until A has settled on a steady course. 
While A is turning, then he is safe from gunfire except 
by a chance shot. B cannot engage while he is himself 
turning unless he can integrate his own movements with 
A's. It is this latter difficulty which largely explains the 
duration of modern actions. At the mean range of each 
engagement, with ships standing still, Sydney could have 



9 8 



THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 



sunk Emden in ten minutes; Inflexible and Invincible could 
have sunk Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in fifteen. But it 
was ninety minutes before Emden was driven on the rocks, 




The crux of sea fighting, changes of course and speed produce an irregularly 
changing range 

1 80 before Scharnhorst sank, and 300 before Gneisenau 
went under. 

In the ten years preceding the war, Admiralty policy, 
as shown by the official apology for the Dreadnought de- 
sign and by the course of naval ordnance administration, 
had been governed by the purely defensive idea of pro- 



NAVAL .GUNNERY 99 

viding ships fast enough to keep outside of the zone of the 
enemy's fire, armed with guns that outranged him. The 
professed object was to have a chance of hitting your 
enemy when he had no chance of hitting you. At the 
Falkland Islands there was given a classic example of the 
tactics that follow from this conception. On the assump- 
tion that twenty-five 12-inch gun hits would suffice to sink 
each of the enemy's armoured cruisers, it appeared that in 
this engagement the 12-inch gun had attained the rate of 
one hit per gun per 75 minutes. This figure may be con- 
trasted with the one hit per gun per 72 seconds attained by 
the Severn in her second engagement with the Koenigs- 
berg at the Rufigi. The contrast seems to show that it was 
only the obsession of the defensive theory that explained 
contentment with methods of gunnery so extraordinarily 
ineffective in battle conditions. For the difference in the 
rate of hitting was almost completely explained by the 
range being constant at the Rufigi, and inconstant at the 
Falklands. And the methods of fire control in use were 
proved at the Falklands to be unequal to finding, and con- 
tinuously keeping, accurate knowledge of an inconstant 
range. 

Again at the affair of the Dogger Bank, Lion, Tiger, 
Princess Royal, New Zealand, and Indomitable were in 
action for many hours against three battle-cruisers and 
an armoured cruiser, and for perhaps half the time at 
ranges at which good hitting is made at battle practice; 
and although two of the enemy battle-cruisers were hit 
and seen to be in flames they were able, after two and a 
half hours' engagement, to continue their retreat at 
undiminished speed, and only the armoured cruiser, whose 
resisting power to 13.5 projectiles must have been very 
feeble, was sunk. 



ioo THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

The lesson of Jutland is still more striking, and it is 
possible to draw the moral with a little greater precision 
since it has been officially admitted in Germany that 
Lutzozv, Admiral von Hipper's flagship, the most modern 
of Germany's battle-cruisers, was destroyed after being 
hit by only fifteen projectiles from great guns. It is not 
clear from the German statement whether this means 
fifteen 13-5's and omits to reckon 12-inch shells, or whether 
there were fifteen hits in all, some of the one nature and 
some of the other. The latter is probably the case; for 
we know from Sir David Beatty's and the German dis- 
patches that it was Invincible s salvos that finally in- 
capacitated the ship and compelled Von Hipper to shift 
his flag. Lutzow was always at the head of the German 
line and so was exposed to the fire of our battle-cruisers 
for nearly three hours. If we assume that she was hit 
by ten 13.5's and five 12-inch; if we further assume that 
the effect of shells is proportionate to their weight; if we 
take the resisting power of British battle-cruisers, German 
battle-cruisers (which are more heavily armoured than 
the British), and all battleships to compare as the figures 
2, 3, and 4 respectively; if we further assume that the Fifth 
Battle Squadron did not come into effective action till 
the second phase began, and went out of action at 6:30, 
and that the battle cruisers were in action for three hours, 
and omit Hood's squadron altogether, we get the following 
results: Five German battle cruisers were exposed to 
seventy-two hours of 13.5 gun fire and to twenty-four 
hours of 12-inch gun fire, and five German battleships 
were exposed to forty-eight 15-inch gun hours. Similar- 
ly — omitting Queen Mary, Indefatigable, and Invincible, 
seemingly destroyed by chance shots and not overwhelmed 
by gunfire — four British battle-cruisers were exposed to 



NAVAL GUNNERY 101 

thirty-seven 12-inch and sixty n-inch gun hours, and the 
Fifth Battle Squadron was exposed to one hundred and 
eighty 12-inch gun hours. Had both sides been able to 
hit at the rate of one hit per hour per gun, the Germans, 
roughly speaking, should have sunk six British battle- 
cruisers, and the four ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron 
nearly twice over; the Fifth Battle Squadron should have 
sunk four German battleships; and the British battle- 
cruisers seven German battle-cruisers! The number of 
hits received by the British Fleet has not been published, 
but it is probably safe to say that the Germans could not 
have made a quarter of this number of hits, nor the 
British ships more than a third. It would seem, then, 
that at most we made one hit per gun per three hours and 
the Germans one hit per gun per four hours. 

At no time, throughout such parts of the action as we 
are considering, did the range exceed 14,000 yards, and 
at some periods it was at 12,000 and at others at 8,000. 
In battle practice not only on the British Fleet but in all 
fleets, hits at the rate of one hit per gun per four minutes 
at 14,000 yards have constantly been made. How, then, 
are we to explain the extraordinary difference between 
battle practice and battle results? In the former certain 
difficulties are artificially created, and methods of fire 
control are employed that can overcome these difficulties 
successfully. But these methods evidently break down 
when it comes to the quite different difficulties that battle 
presents. So far we are on indisputable ground. Wheth- 
er fire control can be so improved that the difficulties of 
battle can be overcome, just as the difficulties of battle 
practice have been overcome is another matter. 

The difference between action and battle practice 
is, broadly speaking, twofold. First, you may have to 



102 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

fight in atmospheric conditions in which you would not 
attempt battle practice. All long-range gunnery, whether 
on sea or on land, depends for success upon range-finding 
and the obervation of fire, and as at sea the observations 
must be made from a point at which the gun is fired, the 
correction of fire becomes impossible if bad light or mist 
prevents the employment of observing glasses and range- 
finders. In the Jutland despatch particular attention was 
directed to the disadvantages we were under in the matter 
of range-finding from these causes. It would appear, 
then, that those who, for many years, had maintained that 
the standard service rangefinder would be useless in a 
North Sea battle, have been proved to be right. 

The second great difference lies in the totally different 
problems which movement creates in battle. In battle 
practice the only movement of the target is that which the 
towing ship can give to it. Its speed and manoeuvring 
power are strictly limited, whereas a 30-knot battle-cruiser 
can change speed and direction at will. The smallest 
change of course must alter the range, and the smallest 
miscalculation of speed or course must make accurate 
forecast of range impossible. But the movements of the 
target are only a part of the difficulty. Those that arise 
from the manoeuvres of the firing ship may be still greater 
and more confusing. And so obvious is this that, in peace 
time, it used to be almost an axiom that to put on helm 
during an engagement — even for the sake of keeping 
station — should be regarded almost as a crime. But the 
long-range torpedo has long since made it clear that a firing 
squadron may have to put on helm. It must manoeuvre, 
that is to say, in self-defence — a thing it would never have 
to do in battle practice. And when both target ship and 
firing ship are manoeuvring, it is small wonder if methods 



NAVAL GUNNERY 103 

of fire control, designed primarily for steady courses by 
one ship and low speed and small turns by the other, break 
down altogether. It is undoubtedly true that the main- 
spring of all defensive naval ideas is doubt as to the success 
of offensive action, and as the only offensive action that a 
battleship can take is by its guns, it would seem as if those 
who disbelieve in the offensive have had far too much 
reason for their scepticism. 

THE TORPEDO IN BATTLE 

It was the invention of the hot-air engine round about 
1907 that converted the torpedo from a short- to a long- 
range weapon, and when, a year or two later, the feasibil- 
ity of running one of these with almost perfect accuracy 
and regularity to a distance of five miles was demonstrated, 
it became quite obvious that a new and, as many thought, 
a decisive element had been introduced into naval war, 
the effect of which would be especially marked in any future 
fleet actions. Just what form its intervention would take 
was much discussed in three years, and the following 
quotation from a confidential contribution of my own on 
this discussion, written in December 191 2, is perhaps not 
without interest as indicating the points then in debate: 

"The tactical employment of fleets has, of course, re- 
cently been complicated, in the opinions of many, by the 
facts that the range of torpedoes is more than doubled; 
that their speed is very greatly increased; and that their 
efficiency (that is, the extent to which they can be relied 
upon to run well) has increased almost as much as their 
range and speed. This advance of the torpedo has fol- 
lowed very rapidly on the development of the submarine, 
and has led, quite naturally, to the suggestion that it 
should be employed on a considerable scale in a fleet action 



io 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

either from under-water craft or by squadrons of fast 
destroyers. 

"The torpedo menace has undoubtedly confused the 
problem of fleet action in a most bewildering manner; but, 
with great respect to those who attach the most import- 
ance to this menace, there are, it seems to me, certain 
principles that should be borne in mind in estimating its 
probable influence. 

"There is a world of difference between a weapon that 
can be evaded and one that cannot. You can, by vig- 
ilance, circumvent the submarine and dodge the torpedo — 
at any rate, in some cases. You can never double to 
avoid a 12-inch shell. It may yet be proved that not the 
least interesting aspect of modern naval warfare will be 
that the torpedo will thus put seamanship back to its 
pride of place. 

"In any circumstances the torpedo, however highly 
developed, is not a weapon of the same kind as- 1 the gun. 
It seems to belong to the same order of military ideas as 
the cutting-out expeditions and use of fire-ships in olden 
days and the employment of mines of more recent date. 
It is, of course, an element in fighting, and a most serious 
element; a means of offence far handier, and with a power 
of striking at a far greater distance than has been seen in 
any parallel mode of war hitherto. And yet I should be 
inclined to maintain that it and its employment remain 
more in the nature of a 'stratagem' than of a tactical 
weapon, truly so called. 

"Mines, torpedoes, a bomb dropped from an airship or 
aeroplane — these are all new perils of war. In the hands 
of a Cochrane their employment might conceivably be 
decisive. But it would need the conjunction of an extra- 
ordinary man with extraordinary fortune. 



NAVAL GUNNERY 105 

"Both Japanese and Russians lost ships by mines and 
torpedoes in 1906, and ships will be lost in future wars in 
the same way, but I find it hard to believe that the essen- 
tial character of fleet actions or of naval war generally can 
be affected by them. It seems indisputable that the 
future must be with the means of offence that has the 
longest reach, can deliver its blow with the greatest rapid- 
ity, and, above all, that is capable of being employed with 
the most exact precision. In these respects the gun is, 
and in the nature of things must remain, unrivalled. 

"The two directions in which fleet-fighting seems likely 
to be most noticeably affected by the new weapon are in 
the formation of fleets and the maintenance of steady 
courses, and in making longer ranges compulsory. 

"I think there are other reasons why the tactical ideal 
set out above — viz., that of using long lines of ships on 
approximately parallel courses at equal speed in the same 
direction — will be questioned; but even if there were not, 
that a mobile mine-field can be made to traverse the line 
of an on-coming squadron, and do so at a range of 10,000 
yards, and that ships formed in line ahead offer between 
five and six times more favourable a target to perpendicu- 
lar submarine attack than a line of ships abreast, will make 
it certain that sooner or later there will be a tendency in 
favour of smaller squadrons and, even with these, of large 
and frequent changes of course, and possibly of formation, 
so as to lesson the torpedo menace. 

In other words, we must recognize that in the long-range 
torpedo we have a new element in naval battle, that of 
the dejensive offensive. It is defensive because, if the 
range of the torpedo is 10,000 yards of absolute run, its 
range is greater if fired on the bow of an advancing squad- 
dron by the distance that squadron may travel — 3,000 to 



106 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

4,000 yards — while the torpedo is doing its 10,000. A 
very fast battle-cruiser, for instance, may have a speed 
only a few knots less than that of the under-water weapon. 
This means either keeping out of gun range of an enemy 
that is retreating, or taking the risk of torpedo attack. 
If you face the risk, you must be ready to manoeuvre to 
avoid it. 

"It looks, then, as if long-range gunnery and gunnery 
under helm were: the first, compulsory, and the second, in- 
evitable." 




107 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Action That Never Was Fought 

August, IQ14. 
Take it for all in all, the most remarkable thing about the 
naval war is that it took the Germans by surprise. They 
had planned the most perfect thing imaginable in the way 
of a scheme for the conquest of all Europe. It had but 
one flaw. They left Great Britain out of their calcula- 
tions — left us out, that is to say, not as ulterior victims, 
but as probable and immediate combatants. We were 
omitted because Germany assumed that we should either 
be too rich, too frightened, or too unready to fight. So 
that, of all the contingencies that could be foreseen, sim- 
ultaneous sea war with Great Britain and land war on two 
frontiers, was the one for which almost no preparations 
had been made. Hence to undo Germany utterly at sea 
proved to be a very simple business indeed. 

Much has been made of this statesman or that admiral 
having actually issued the mandate that kept the Grand 
Fleet mobilized and got it to its war stations two days 
before war was declared. But there is here no field for 
flattery and no scope for praise, and the historical interest 
in identifying the actual agent is slender. It has always 
been a part of the British defensive theory that the main 
Fleet shall be ever ready for instant war orders. Of the 
fact of its being the plan, we need no further testimony 
than Mr. Churchill's first Memorandum after his eleva- 
tion to the control of British naval policy and of the British 

108 



ACTION THAT NEVER WAS FOUGHT 109 

Fleet. The thing, therefore, that was done was the mere 
mechanical discharge of a standing order. 

Once the Fleet was mobilized and at its war stations, 
German sea power perished off the outer seas as effectually 
as if every surface ship had been incontinently sunk. 
There was not a day's delay in our using the Channel ex- 
actly as if ho enemy were afloat. Within an hour of 
the declaration of war being known, no German ship 
abroad cleared for a German port, nor did any ship in a 
German port clear for the open sea. The defeat was suf- 
fered without a blow being offered in defence, and, for 
the purposes of trade and transport, it was as instantane- 
ous as it was final. 

Nor was it our strength, nor sheer terror of our strength, 
that made the enemy impotent. He was confounded as 
much by surprise as he was by superior power. In point 
of fact, the disparity between the main forces of the two 
Powers in the North Sea, though considerable, was not 
such as to have made Germany despair of an initial vic- 
tory — and that possibly decisive — had she been free to 
choose her own method of making war on us, and had she 
chosen her time wisely. In August 1914 three of our bat- 
tle cruisers were in the Mediterranean, one was in the 
Pacific, one was in dockyard hands. Only one German 
ship of the first importance was absent from Kiel. In 
modern battleships commissioned and at sea, the German 
High Seas Fleet consisted of at least two Konigs, five 
Kaisers, four Helgolands, and four Westfalens. All ex- 
cept the Westfalens were armed with 12.2 guns — weapons 
that fire a heavier shell than the British 12-inch. The 
Westfalens were armed with 11-inch guns. They could, 
then, have brought into action a broadside fire of no 
12-inch guns and 40 n-inch. Germany had, besides, four 



no THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

battle-cruisers, less heavily armed than our ships of the 
same class, quite as fast as our older battle-cruisers and 
much more securely armoured. So that if protection — as 
so many seem to think — is the one essential quality in a 
fighting ship, they were more suited to take their share in 
a fleet action than our battle-cruisers could have been 
expected to be. 

On our side we had twenty battleships and four arm- 
oured cruisers. In modern capital ships, then, we poss- 
essed but twenty-four to nineteen — a percentage of super- 
iority of only just over 25 per cent., and less than that for 
action purposes if the principle alluded to holds good. It 
was a margin far lower than the public realized. At Jut- 
land we lost two battle cruisers in the first forty minutes 
of the action. Had such an action been fought, with like 
results, in August, 1914, our surviving margin would have 
been very slender indeed. But the enemy dared not take 
the risk. He paid high for his caution. Yet his infer- 
iority should not have paralyzed him. At Jutland he 
faced infinitely greater odds. His numbers were not such 
as to make inglorious inactivity compulsory had he been 
resourceful, enterprising, and willing to risk all in the 
attack. It certainly was a position that bristled with 
possibilities for an enemy who, to resource, courage, and 
enterprise, could add the overpowering advantage of 
choosing the day and the hour of attack, and could strike 
without a moment's warning. 

If the German Government had realized from the start 
that in no war that threatened the balance of power in 
Europe could we remain either indifferent or, what is far 
more important, inactive spectators, then they would 
have realized something else as well, something that was, 
in point of fact, realized the moment Germany began her 



ACTION THAT NEVER WAS FOUGHT in 

self-imposed — but now impossible — task of conquering 
Europe by first crushing France and Russia. She would 
have realized as then she did, that if Great Britain were 
allowed to come into the war her intervention might be 
decisive. It would seemingly have to be so for very obvi- 
ous reasons. With France and Russia assured of the 
economic and financial support of the greatest economic 
and financial Power in Europe, Germany's immediate 
opponents would have staying power: time, that is to say, 
would be against their would-be conquerors. The inter- 
vention of Great Britain, then, would make an ultimate 
German victory impossible. In a long war staying power 
would make the population of the British Empire a source 
from which armies could be drawn. Beginning by being 
the greatest sea Power in the world, we would necessarily 
end in becoming one of the greatest military Powers as 
well. The two things by themselves must have threatened 
military defeat for Germany. Nor, again, was this all. 
For while sea power, and the financial strength which 
goes with sustained trade and credit, could add indefinitely 
to the fighting capacity and endurance of Russia and 
France, sea power and siege were bound, if resolutely 
used, to sap the fighting power and endurance of the 
Central Powers. 

To the least prophetic of statesmen — just as to the 
least instructed students of military history — the situation 
would have been plain. And there could be but one lesson 
to be drawn from it. To risk everything on a quick victory 
over France or Russia was insanity. If the conquest of 
Europe could not be undertaken with Great Britain an 
opponent, the alternative was simple. Either the conquest 
of Great Britain must precede it or the conquest of the 
world be postponed to the Greek Kalends. 



ii2 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Was the conquest of Great Britain a thing so unattaina- 
ble that it had only to be considered to be discarded as 
visionary? No doubt, had we been warned and upon 
our guard, ready to defend ourselves before Germany 
was ready to strike, then certainly any such scheme must 
have been doomed to failure. But I am not so sure that 
a successful attack would have been beyond the resources 
of those who planned the great European war, had they 
from the first, grasped the elementary truth that it was 
necessary to their larger scheme. For to win the conquest 
of Europe it would not be necessary to crush Great Britain 
finally and altogether. All that was required was to 
prevent her interference for, say, six months, and this, it 
really seems, was far from being a thing beyond the 
enemy's capacity to achieve. 

The essentials of the attack are easy enough to tabulate. 
First, Germany would have to concentrate in the North 
Sea the largest force of capital ships that it was possible 
to equip. Her own force I have already enumerated. 
Had Germany contemplated war on Great Britain she 
would, of course, not have sent the Goeben away to the 
Straits. The nucleus of the German Fleet, then, would 
have been twenty and not nineteen ships. To these 
might have been added the three completed Dreadnoughts 
of the Austrian Fleet, the Viribus Unitis, Tegetthof, and 
Prinz Eugen — all of which were in commission in the 
summer of 1914. They would have contributed a broad- 
side fire of 36 12-inch guns — a very formidable reinforce- 
ment — and brought the enemy fleet to an almost numerical 
equality with ours. A review at Kiel would have been a 
plausible excuse for bringing the Austrian Dreadnoughts 
into German waters. Supposing the British force, then, 
to have been undiminished, the war might have opened 



ACTION THAT NEVER WAS FOUGHT 113 

with a bare superiority of five per cent, on the British 
side. 

But there is no reason why British strength should not 
have been reduced. Knowing as we now do, not the 
potentialities, but the practical use that can be made of 
submarines and destroyers, it must be plain to all that, 
had Germany intended to begin a world war with a blow 
at Great Britain, she might well have hoped to have 
reduced our strength to such a margin before the war be- 
gan, as to make it almost unnecessary to provide against 
a fleet action. Most certainly a single surprise attack by 
submarines could have done all that was desired. 

By a singular coincidence, an opportunity for such an 
attack — an opportunity that could hardly have failed 
of a most sinister success — offered itself at the strategic 
moment when the Central Powers had already resolved 
to use the murder of the Archduke as a pretext for an 
unprovoked attack on Christendom. All our battleships 
of the first, second, and third lines, all our battle-cruisers 
commissioned and in home waters, almost all our armoured 
cruisers and fast light cruisers, and the bulk of our de- 
stroyers and auxiliaries were, in the fateful third week in 
July, gathered and at anchor— and completely un- 
protected—in the fairway of the Solent. There were to 
be no manoeuvres in 1914, but a test mobilization instead, 
and this great congregation of the Fleet was to be a 
measure of the Admiralty's capacity to man all our naval 
forces of any fighting worth. The fact that this gathering 
was to take place on a certain and appointed date was 
public property in the month of March. A week or a 
fortnight before the squadrons steamed one by one to 
their moorings, a plan of the anchored lines was published 
in every London paper. The order of the Fleet, the 



ii 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

identity of every ship in its place in every line, might have 
been, and probably were, in German hands a week before 
any single ship was in her billet. From Emden to the 
Isle of Wight is a bare 350 miles — a day and a half's 
journey for a submarine — and in July 1914, Germany 
possessed between twenty and thirty submarines. It 
was a day and a half's journey if it had been all made at 
under-water speed. What could not a dozen Weddigens 
and Hersings have done had they only been sent upon 
this fell mission, and their arrival been timed for an hour 
before daybreak on the morning of July 18? They 
surely could have gone far beyond wiping out a margin 
of five big ships, which was all the margin we had against 
the German Fleet alone. They could, in the half light 
of the summer's night, have slipped five score torpedoes 
into a dozen or more battleships and battle-cruisers. 
They could have attacked and returned undetected, 
leaVing Great Britain largely helpless at sea and quite 
unable to take part in the forthcoming European war. 
Germany could, of course, have done much more to 
complete our discomfiture. A hundred merchant ships, 
each carrying three brace of 4-inch guns, and sent as 
peaceful traders astride the distant trade routes; the 
despatch of two score or more destroyers to the approaches 
of the Channel and the Western ports, and all of them 
instructed — as in fact, eight months afterwards, every 
submarine was instructed — to sink every British liner 
and merchantman at sight, without waiting to search or 
troubling to save passengers or crew — raids organized 
on this scale and on these principles could have reduced 
our merchant shipping by a crippling percentage in little 
more than forty-eight hours. The two things taken to- 
gether — the assassination of the Fleet, the wholesale 



ACTION THAT NEVER WAS FOUGHT 115 

murder of the merchant marine — must certainly have 
thrown Great Britain into a paroxysm of grief and panic. 

What a moment this would have been for throwing a 
raiding force, could one have been secretly organized, 
upon the utterly undefended, and now indefensible, 
eastern coast! Secretly, skilfully, and ruthlessly executed 
these three measures could have done far more than make 
it impossible for Great Britain to take a hand in the 
defence of France. They might, by the sheer rapidity 
and terrific character of the blows, have thrown us so 
completely off our balance as to make us unwilling, 
if we were not already powerless, to make further efforts 
even to defend ourselves. At least, so it must have 
appeared to Germany. For it was the essence of the 
German case that the nation was too distracted by 
political differences, too fond of money-making, too 
debilitated by luxury and comfort, too conscious of its 
weak hold on the self-governing colonies, too uncertain 
of its tenure on its oversea Imperial possessions, to stand 
by its plighted word. The nation has since proved that 
all these things were delusions. But it was no delusion 
that Great Britain would be very reluctant to participate 
in any war. And we need not have fallen so low as 
Germany supposed and yet be utterly discomposed and 
incapable of further effort, had we indeed, in quick 
succession or simultaneously, received the triple onslaught 
that it was well within the enemy's power to inflict. 

Even had these blows so failed in the completeness 
of their several and combined effects as to crush us al- 
together, had we recovered and been able to strike back, 
what would have been the situation? It would have 
taken us some months to hunt down and destroy a hundred 
armed German merchantmen. If 100,000 or 150,000 



n6 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

men had been landed, the campaign that would have 
ended in their defeat and surrender could not have been 
a very rapid one. Our re-assertion of the command of 
the seas might have had to wait until the dockyards, 
working day and night shifts, could restore the balance 
of naval power. Suppose, then, we escaped defeat; 
suppose these assassin blows had ended in the capture or 
sinking of a hundred merchantmen in the final overthrow 
of Germany's sea power — could these things have been 
any loss to Germany, if it had been the price of swift and 
complete victory in Europe? In the unsuccessful attack 
on Verdun alone she threw away not 150,000 men but 
three times that number. There is not a German mer- 
chantman afloat that has been worth sixpence to her 
country since war was declared, nor in the first two years 
of war did the German Fleet achieve anything to counter- 
balance what the German Army lost by having, to face 
the British as well as the French Army in the west. The 
sacrifices, then, would have been trivial compared with 
the stake for which Germany was playing. If it had 
resulted in keeping us out of the Continent for six months 
only, our paralysis, even if only temporary, should have 
decided the issue in Germany's favour. 

Greatly as Germany dared in forcing war upon a 
Europe altogether surprised and almost altogether un- 
ready, yet in point of fact she dared just too little. 
Abominably wicked as her conduct was, it was not wicked 
enough to win the justification of success. If war was 
intended to be inevitable from the moment the Serbian 
ultimatum was sent, the capacity of Great Britain to 
intervene should have been dealt with resolutely and 
ruthlessly and removed as a risk before any other risk 
was taken. It sobers one to reflect how changed the 



ACTION THAT NEVER WAS FOUGHT 117 

situation might have been had German foresight been 
equal to the German want of scruple. Looking back, 
it seems as if it was but a very little thing the enemy had 
to do to ensure the success of all his plans. 

Had any one before the war sketched out this pro- 
gramme as one which Germany might adopt, he would 
perhaps have been regarded by the great majority of his 
countrymen as a lunatic. But to-day we can look at 
Germany in the light of four years of her conduct. And 
we can see that it was not scruple or tenderness of con- 
science or any decent regard for the judgment of man- 
kind that made her overlook the first essential of success. 
We must attribute it to quite a different cause. I am 
quoting from memory, but it seems to me that Sir Fred- 
erick Pollock has put the truth in this matter into exact 
terms. "The Germans will go down to history as people 
who foresaw everything except what actually happened? 
and calculated everything except its cost to themselves." 
It is the supreme example of the childish folly that, for 
the next two years, we were to see always hand in hand 
with diabolical wickedness and cunning. And always 
the folly has robbed the cunning of its prey. 

In the edifying tales that we have inherited from the 
Middle Ages, when simple-minded Christian folk person- 
ified the principle of evil and attributed all wickedness 
to the instigation of the Devil, we are told again and 
again of men who bargained with the Evil One, offering 
their eternal souls in payment for some present good — a 
grim enough exchange for a man to make who believed 
he had a soul to give. But it is seldom in these tales 
that the bargain goes through so simply. Sometimes 
it is the sinner who scores by repentance and the interven- 
tion of Heaven and a helpful saint. But often it is the 



n8 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Devil that cheats the sinner. The forfeit of the soul 
is not explicit in the bargain. There is some other 
promise, seemingly of plain intent, but in truth ambiguous, 
which seems to make it possible for sin to go unpunished. 
Too late, the deluded gambler finds the treaty a "scrap 
of paper." The story of Macbeth is a case in point. 

Does it not look as if Germany had made some un- 
hallowed bargain of this kind? — as if this hideous adven- 
ture was started on the faith of a promise of success given 
by her evil genius and always destined to be unredeemed ? 
Is it altogether chance that there should have been this 
startling blindness to the most palpable of the forces in 
the game? — such inexplicable inaction where the right 
action was so obvious and so easy? 



CHAPTER IX 

The Destruction of "Koenigsberg" 

The story of the destruction of Koenigsberg by the twin 
monitors Severn and Mersey in the Rufigi Delta, has an 
interest that far transcends the intrinsic military im- 
portance of depriving the enemy of a cruiser already 
useless in sea war. For the narrative of events will 
bring to our attention at once the extreme complexity 
and the diversity of the tasks that the Royal Navy in 
war is called upon to discharge. It is worth examining 
in detail, if only to illustrate the novelty of the operations 
which officers, with no such previous experience, may at 
any moment be called upon to undertake, and the ex- 
traordinary combination of patience, courage, skill, and 
energy with which when experience at last comes, it 
is turned to immediate profit. The incident possesses, 
besides, certain technical aspects of the very highest 
importance. For it gives in its simplest form perfect 
examples of how guns should not and should be used 
when engaged in indirect fire, and by affording this 
illuminating contrast, is highly suggestive of the progress 
that may be made in naval gunnery when scientific method 
is universally applied. The incident, then, is worth 
setting out and examining in some detail, and there is 
additional reason for doing this, in that the accounts 
that originally appeared were either altogether inaccurate 
or so incomplete as to be misleading. First, then, to a 
narrative of the event itself. 

119 



120 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Koenigsberg was a light unarmoured cruiser of about 
3,400 tons displacement, and was laid down in December 
1905. She carried an armament often 4.1-inch guns, and 
was protected by a 2-inch armoured deck. The Germans 
had begun the construction of vessels of this class about 
seven years before with Gazelle, which was followed in the 
next year by Niobe and Ny'mphe, and then by four more — 
including Ariadne, destroyed by Lion in the affair of the 
Heligoland Bight — which were laid down in 1900. Two 
years later came the three Frauenlobs, and the Bremen 
class — five in number — succeeded these in 1903-4. In 
1905 followed Leipzig, Danzig, and finally the ship that 
concerns us to-day. All these vessels had the same arm- 
ament, but in the six years the displacement had gone up 
1,000 tons. The speed had increased from 2i§ knots to 
about 24, and the nominal radius of action by about 50 
per cent. Koenigsberg was succeeded by the Stettins in 
1906-7, the two Dresdens in 1907-8, the four Kolbergs in 
1908-9, and the four Breslaus in 191 1. Karlsruhe, Gro- 
denz, and Rostock were the only three of the 1912-13 pro- 
grammes which were completed when the war began. 
The process of growth, illustrated in the advance of Koen- 
igsberg over Niobe, was maintained, so that in the Karls- 
ruhe class in the programme of 191 2, while the unit of 
armament is preserved, we find that the number of guns 
had grown from ten to twelve; the speed had advanced 
from 23 1 to 28 knots, and the displacement from 3,400 
to nearly 5,000 tons. As we know now, in the Battle of 
Jutland we destroyed light cruisers of a still later class in 
which, in addition to every other form of defence, the arm- 
ament had been changed from 4.1-inch to 6.7 guns. 

Koenigsberg, on the very eve of the outbreak of war, was 
seen by three ships of the Cape Squadron off Dar-es- 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 121 

Salaam, the principal port of German East Africa. She 
was then travelling due north at top speed, and was not 
seen or heard of again until, a week later, she sank the 
British steamer City of Winchester near the island of So- 
cotra. There followed three weeks during which no news 
of her whereabouts reached us. At the end of the month 
it was known that she had returned south and was in the 
neighbourhood of Madagascar. At the end of the third 
week in September she came upon H.M.S. Pegasus off 
Zanzibar. Pegasus was taken completely unawares while 
she was cleaning furnaces and boilers and engaged in gen- 
eral repairs. It was not possible then for her to make any 
effective reply to Koenigsberg s sudden assault, and a few 
hours after Koenigsberg left she sank. Some time be- 
tween the end of September and the end of October, 
Koenigsberg retreated up one of the mouths of the Rufigi 
River, and was discovered near the entrance on October 
31 by H.M.S. Chatham. From then onwards, all the 
mouths of the river were blockaded and escape became 
impossible. Her captain seemingly determined, in these 
circumstances, to make the ship absolutely safe. He 
took advantage of the high water tides, and forced his 
vessel some twelve or more miles up the river. Here she 
was located by aeroplane at the end of November. Var- 
ious efforts had been made to reach her by gunfire. It 
was asserted at one time that H.M.S. Goliath had indeed 
destroyed her by indirect bombardment. But there was 
never any foundation for supposing the story to be true, 
and if in the course of any of these efforts the ship suffered 
any damage, it became abundantly clear, when she was 
finally engaged by the monitors, either that her armament 
had never been touched, or that all injuries had been made 
good. 



122 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

The problems which the existence of Koenigsberg pro- 
pounded were : first, Was it a matter of very urgent moment 
to destroy her? Second, How could her destruction be 
effected? The importance of destroying her was great. 
There was, of course, no fear of her affecting the naval 
position seriously if she should be able to escape; but that 
she could do some, and possibly great, damage if at large, 
the depredations of Emden in the neighbouring Indian 
Ocean, and of Karlsruhe off Pernambuco, had proved very 
amply indeed. If she was not destroyed then, a close 
blockade would have to be rigidly maintained, and it was 
a question whether the maintenance of the blockade would 
not involve, in the end, just as much trouble as her des- 
truction. Then there was a further point. Sooner or 
later, the forces of Great Britain and Belgium would cer- 
tainly have to undertake the conquest of German East 
Africa. While Koenigsberg could not be used as a unit 
for defence, her crew and armament might prove valuable 
assets to the enemy. Finally, there was a question of 
prestige. The Germans thought that they had made 
their ship safe. If the thing was possible, it was our obvi- 
ous duty to prove that their confidence was misplaced. 

If the ship was to be destroyed, what was to be the 
method of her destruction ? She could not be reached by 
ship's guns. For no normal warship of superior power 
would be of less draught than Koenigsberg, and unless the 
draught were very materially less, it would be quite im- 
possible to get within range, except by processes as slow 
and laborious as those by which she had attained her an- 
chorage. Was it worth while attempting a cutting-out 
expedition ? It would not, of course, be on the lines of the 
dashing and gallant adventures so brilliantly drawn for 
us by Captain Marryat. The boats would proceed under 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 123 

steam and would not be rowed; they would not sally out 
to board the enemy and fight his crew hand to hand, but 
to get near enough to start a torpedo at him, discharged 
from dropping gear in a picket boat. To have attempted 
this would have been to face a grave risk, for not 
only might the several entrances be mined, but the boats 
clearly would have to advance unprotected up a river 
whose banks were covered with bush impenetrable to the 
eye. The enemy, it was known, had not only considerable 
military forces in the colony, but those well supplied with 
field artillery. And there were on board Koenigsberg not 
only the 4.1-inch guns of her main armament, but a con- 
siderable battery of eight or perhaps twelve, 3-inch guns — 
a weapon amply large enough to sink a ship's picket boat, 
and that with a single shot. An attack by boats then prom- 
ised no success at all, for the excellent reason that it 
would be the simplest thing on earth for the enemy to 
defeat it long before the expedition had reached the point 
from which it could strike a blow at its prey. 

There was then only one possible solution of the prob- 
lem. It was to employ armed vessels of sufficient gun- 
power to do the work quickly, and of shallow enough 
draught to get to a fighting range quickly. If the thing 
were not done quickly, an attack from the masked banks 
might be fatal. If the guns of such a vessel were corrected 
by observers in aeroplanes, they might be enabled to do 
the trick. Fortunately, at the very opening if the war, 
the Admiralty had purchased from the builders three 
river monitors, then under construction in England for the 
Brazilian Government. They drew but a few feet. Their 
free board was low, their centre structure afforded but a 
small mark; the two 6-inch guns they carried fore and aft 
were protected by steel shields. They had been employed 



i2 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

with marked success against the Germans in their first ad- 
vance to the coast of Belgium. When the enemy, having 
established himself in the neighbourhood of Nieuport, 
had time to bring up and emplace long-range guns of large 
calibre, the further employment of these river monitors 
on this, their first job, was no longer possible. For the 
moment, then, they seemed to be out of work, and here 
was an undertaking exactly suited to their capacity. 
It was not the sort of undertaking for which they had 
been designed. But it was one to which, undoubtedly 
they could be adapted. Of the three monitors Mersey 
and Severn were therefore sent out to Mafia Island, which 
lies just off the Rufigi Delta and had been seized by us 
early in the proceedings. 

The first aeroplanes available proved to be unequal to 
the task, because of the inadequacy of their lifting power. 
The atmosphere in the tropics is of a totally different buoy- 
ancy from that in colder latitudes, and a machine whose 
engines enable it to mount quite easily to a height of 
4,000 or 5,000 feet in Northern Europe, cannot, in Central 
Africa, rise more than a few hundred feet from the ground. 
New types of machines, therefore, had to be sent, and 
these had to be tested and got ready for work. For many 
weeks then, before the actual attack was undertaken, 
we must picture to ourselves the Island of Mafia, hitherto 
unoccupied and indeed untouched by Europeans, in the 
process of conversion into an effective base for some highly 
complicated combined operations of aircraft and sea force. 
The virgin forest had to be cleared away and the ground 
levelled for an aerodrome. The flying men had to study 
and master machines of a type of which they had no previ- 
ous experience. The monitors had to have their guns tested 
and their structural arrangement altered and strength- 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 125 

ened to fit them for their new undertaking. And indeed 
preparing the monitors was a serious matter. The whole 
delta of the Rufigi is covered with forest and thick bush — 
nowhere are the trees less than sixty feet high, and in 
places they rise to nearly three times this height. To 
engage the Koenigsberg with any prospect of success, five, 
six, or seven miles of one of the river branches would cer- 
tainly have to be traversed. There was, it is true, a 
choice of three mouths by which these vessels might pro- 
ceed. But it would be almost certain that the different 
mouths would be protected by artillery, machine guns, 
and rifles, and highly probable that one or all of them 
would be mined. The thick bush would make it impos- 
sible for the monitors to engage any hidden opponents with 
sufficient success to silence their fire. And obviously 
any portion of the bank might conceal, not only field 
guns and riflemen, but stations from which torpedoes 
could be released against them. It was imperative there- 
fore, to protect the monitors from such gun fire as might be 
encountered, and to take every step possible to preserve 
their buoyancy if a mine or torpedo was encountered. 

The Trent had come out as a mother ship to these two 
unusual men-of-war, and from the moment of their 
arrival, she became an active arsenal for the further arm- 
ing and protection of her charges. Many tons of plating 
were laid over their vulnerable portions — the steering 
gear, magazines, navigating bridges, etc, having to be 
specially considered. The gun shields were increased in 
size, and every precaution taken to protect the gunners 
from rifle fire. Where plating could not be added, sand- 
bags were employed. By these means the danger of the 
ship being incapacitated, or the crew being disabled by 
what the enemy could do from the bank, was reduced 



126 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

to a minimum. These precautions would not, of course, 
have been a complete protection against continuous 
hitting by the plunging fire of Koenigsberg's artillery. 
The more difficult job was to protect the ships against 
mines and torpedoes. Their first and best protection, of 
course, was their shallow draught. But it was not left 
at that; and most ingenious devices were employed which 
would have gone a fair way to keep the ships floating 
even had an under-water mine been exploded .beneath 
the bottom. At intervals, between these spells of dock- 
yard work, the monitors were taken out for practice in 
conjunction with the aeroplanes. Mafia Island, which 
had already served as a dockyard and aerodrome, was 
now once more to come in useful as a screen between the 
monitors and the target. The various operations neces- 
sary for indirect fire were carefully studied. Gun-layers, 
of course, cannot aim at a mark they cannot see. The 
gun, therefore, has to be trained and elevated on informa- 
tion exteriorly obtained, and some object within view — 
at exactly the same height above the water as the gun- 
layer — has to be found on which he is to direct his sight. 
The gun is now elevated to the approximate range, a 
shot is fired and the direction of the shot and the distance 
upon the sight are altered in accordance with the correc- 
tion. At last a point of aim for the gun-layer, and a sight 
elevation and deflection are found, and his duty then 
is to fire away, aiming perhaps at a twig or a leaf a few 
hundred yards ofF, while the projectile he discharges 
falls upon a target four, five, or even six miles off. 

THE FIRST ATTEMPT 

At last all was ready for the great attack. The crew 
had all been put into khaki, every fitting had been cleared 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 127 

out of the monitors; they had slipped off in the dark the 
night before and were anchored when, at 3 130 in the 
morning, all was ready. I will now let a participant 
continue the story: 

"I woke up hearing the chatter of the seedy boys and 
the voice of the quartermaster telling someone it was 
3:20. I hurried along to my cabin and was dressed in 
three minutes; khaki shirt, trousers, shoes, and socks. 
A servant brought me a cup of cocoa and some biscuits, 
and I then gathered the waterbottle and a haversack of 
sandwiches, biscuits, brandy flask, glass phial of morphia, 
box of matches, cigarettes, and made my way up to the 
top. 

"It was quite dark in spite of the half moon partly 
hidden by clouds, and men wandering about the docks 
putting the last touches. It was impossible to recognize 
any one as all were in khaki and cap and helmet. By 

3 :45 all were at general quarters and at we weighed 

and proceeded. Both motor-boats were towing, one on 
either side amidships. Two whalers anchored off Komo 
Island, and burning a single light each, acted as a guide to 
the mouth. We soon began to see the dim outline of the 

shore on the right hand, and declared he could 

distinguish the mouth. There were four of us in the top. 

We arranged ourselves conveniently, and 

taking a side each to look out. The Gunnery Lieutenant 
took the fore 6-inch and starboard battery. I had the 
after 6-inch and port battery. I dozed at first for about 
ten minutes, but as the island neared woke up completely. 
We had no idea what sort of reception we should have, 
and speculated about it. It was quite cold looking over 
the top. The land came nearer and nearer. We were go- 
ing slow, sounding all the way. On the starboard side it 



128 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

was quite visible as the light grew stronger and stronger. 
Suddenly when we were well inside the right bank we 
heard a shot fired on the starboard quarter, but could 
not see the flash. Then came another, but only at the 
third did we see where it came from. It was a field-gun on 
the right, but we had already passed it, and both it and 
the pom-pom were turned on the Mersey astern of us. 

"At least nothing fell near us. It was still not light 
enough for us to judge the range, but as the alarm had 
been given we opened fire with the 3-pounders, starboard 
side, at the fieldgun. As we came up to the point on the 
port side I trained all the port battery on the foremost 
bearing, and opened fire as soon as the guns would bear. 
We were now going pretty well full speed. Some snipers 
were hidden in the trees and rushes, and let us have it as 
we went past. The report of their rifles sounded quite 
different from ours, but we were abreast before they 
started, and were soon past. It was just getting light. 
We were inside the river before the sun rose, and went 
quite fast up. It was just about dead low water as we 
entered, neap tide. The river was about 700 yards 
broad. The banks were well defined by the green trees, 
mangroves probably, which grew right down to the edges. 
The land beyond was quite flat on the left, but about 
four miles to the right rose to quite a good height — 
Pemba Hills. Here and there were native huts well back 
from the river; we could see them from the top though 
they were invisible from the deck. On either side as we 
passed up were creeks of all sorts and sizes at low tides, 
more of them on the port side than on the starboard. 
As we passed, or rather before, we turned the port or 
starboard batteries on them and swept either side. The 
gun-layers had orders to fire at anything that moved or 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENXG8BERG" 129 

looked suspicious. We controlled them more or less, and 

gave them the bearings of the creeks. was in charge 

of those on deck, and the crews themselves fired or ceased 
fire if they saw anything or had sunk anything. We 
checked them from time to time as the next creek opened 
up. We were looking ahead most of the time, but I 

believe (from ) we sank three dhows and a boat. 

Whether they were harmless or not, I don't know, but it 
had to be done as a precaution. We made a fine noise, 
the sharp report of the five 3-pounders and one 4.7 and 
the crackle of the machine guns (four a side) must have 
been heard for miles. The Hyacinth, the tugs, the Trent, 
the Weymouth, and other odd craft were demonstrating 
at the other mouths of the Rufigi, and we could hear the 
deep boom of their 6-inch now and then. I believe, too, 
that there was a demonstration by colliers, etc., off Dar-es- 
Salaam at the same time. 

"I had thought that the entry would be the worst part, 
but it was not much. A few bullets got us and marked 
the plates or went through the hammocks but no one was 
hit, and as our noise completely drowned the report of 
their rifles I doubt if many knew we were being sniped. 
The forecastle hands knew all about it later on. As they 
hauled in the anchor or let it go they nipped behind any 
shelter there was, and could hear the bullets zip-zip into 
the sandbags, The Mersey astern was blazing away into 
the banks just as we were. There was probably nothing 
in most of the creeks — but we did not know it then. 

"It was 6:30 o'clock by the time we reached 'our' 
island, where the river branches into three, at the end of 
which we were to anchor. We were steering straight up 
the middle of the stream, and then swung slowly round to 
port, dropped the stern anchor, let out seventy fathoms 



i 3 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

of wire, dropped the main anchor, went astern, and then 
tightened in both cables, so that we were anchored fast 
bow and stern. As soon as we steadied down a bearing 
was taken on the chart and the gun laid — about eight 
minutes' work. It was then found that, thanks to the 
curious run of the current, the fore 6-inch would not bear, 
and we had to take up the bow anchor and let it go again 
to get us squarer towards the Koenigsberg. 

"We could see the aeroplane right high up, and received 
the signal 'open fire.' We were not quite ready, however. 
From the moment when we turned to port to take up our 
firing position to the time we were finally ready and had 
laid both guns, occupied about twenty minutes. The 
Koenigsberg started firing at us five minutes before we 
were ready to start. Their first shot (from one gun only) 
fell on the island, the next was on the edge of it, and very 
soon she was straddling us. Where they were spotting 
from I don't know, but they must have been in a good 
position, and their spotting was excellent. They never 
lost our range. The firing started, and for the next two 
hours both sides were hard at it. I don't believe any ship 
has been in a hotter place without being hit. Their 
shooting was extraordinarily good. Their salvoes of fire 
at first dropped ioo short, 50 over, 20 to the right — then 
straddled us — then just short — then all round us, and so 
on. We might have been hit fifty times — they could 
not have fired better; but we were not hit at all, though 
a piece of shell was picked up on the forecastle. 

"The river was now a curious sight, as dead fish were 
coming to the surface everywhere. It was the Koenigs- 
berg s shells bursting in the water which did the damage, 
and there were masses of them everywhere — mostly 
small ones. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 131 

"We were firing all the time, of course. I attended 
to the W/T, and passed the messages to the Gunnery 
Lieutenant, who made the corrections and passed them 

to the guns. watched the aeroplane and the banks 

as far as possible. attended to the conning tower 

voice pipe. We got H. T. fairly soon, and the Koenigs- 
bergs salvoes were now only four guns. We heard the 
boom; then before it had finished came whizz-z-z-z or 
plop, plop, plop, plop, as the shells went just short or over. 
They were firing much more rapidly than we, and I should 
think more accurately, but if I had been in the Koenigs- 
berg I should, probably, have thought the opposite! All 
this time the 3-pounders had occasional outbursts as they 
saw, or thought they saw, something moving. Oc- 
casionally, too, the smoke and fumes from our funnel 
drifted across the top, and it was unpleasant for a minute 
or two. We could see now where the Koenigsberg was, 
and the smoke from her funnels, or that our shells made. 
She was firing salvoes of four with great rapidity and 
regularity, about three times a minute, and every one of 
them close. Some made a splash in the water so near 
that you could have reached the place with a boat-hook. 

"At 7:40 (so I am told, as, though I tried I lost all 
count of time) a shell hit the fore 6-inch of the Mersey 
and a column of flame shot up. Four were killed and 
four wounded. Part of the shield was blown away. 
Only one man remained standing, and after swaying 
about he fell dead. One had his head completely blown 
off. Another was lying with his arm torn out at the 
shoulder, and his body covered with yellow flames from 
a lyddite charge which caught. The R. N. R. Lieutenant 
in charge was knocked senseless and covered with blood, 
but had only a scratch on the wrist to show for it. The 



i 3 2 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

gun-layer had an extraordinary escape, and only lost 
three fingers. Two men escaped as they had just gone 
forward to weigh the anchor. A burning charge fell into 
the shell room below, but was fortunately got out. An- 
other shell burst in the motor-boat alongside the Mersey 
and sank it. One burst in the water about a foot from 
the side, and we thought she was holed. The Mersey 
captain then wisely moved and went down river, taking 
up a position of 1,000 yards down, by the right bank 
(looking at the Koenigsberg). She started in again with 
her after gun, the other being disabled. For an hour 
and twenty minutes we went on, and the Koenigsberg s 
salvoes came steadily and regularly back, as close as ever. 
It seemed as if it could not go on much longer. We 
registered four hits, and the salvoes were reduced from 
four to three, and later to two, and then to one gun. 
Whether we had reduced them to silence or whether the 
Koenigsberg s crew left them and saved ammunition it 
is impossible to say. 

"The aeroplane spotting had been fair, but now some- 
one else started in and made the signals unintelligible. 
Then we got spotting corrections from two sources — both 
differing widely. Finally, the aeroplane made "W. 0." 
(going home). We weighed and took up station again 
by the Mersey. She moved to get out of our way, and 
when another aeroplane came we started it again. The 
replies from the Koenigsberg were not so frequent, and 
nothing like so accurate. It was as if they could not 
spot the fall of shot. The aeroplane soon disappeared, 
and as we could see the mast of the Koenigsberg (I could 
only see one personally) and a column of smoke which 
varied in thickness from time to time, we tried to spot 
for ourselves. It was useless as, though we saw the burst 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 133 

(or thought we did) in line with the masts, we did not 
know whether they were over or short. Finally, we 
moved up the river nearer, still keeping on the right side, 
and set to work again. 

" There were two cruisers — Weymouth and Pyramus, 
I t'hink — at the mouth. The Weymouth did a good deal 
of firing at Pemba Hill and a native village close to us, 
where there might be spotters. 

"When we reached W/T corrections now they were 
of no use. Most were 'did not observe fall of shot,'' or 
600 short. We went up 1,000, but still received the same 
signal — whether from the aeroplane or the Koenigsberg, 
I don't know. It was most confusing. We crept up the 
scale to maximum elevation. Finally, we moved up the 
river again, but put our nose on the mud. We were soon 
off, and moved over to the other side and continued firing, 
spotting as well as we could (but getting nothing definite) 
till four o'clock, when we packed up and prepared to 
come out. We swept the banks again on both sides, but 
only at the entrance was there opposition. We made 
such a noise ourselves that we drowned the report of 
any shots fired at us. Two field-guns made good practice 
at us from the right bank (looking at the Koenigsberg). 
One came very close indeed to the top — so much so that 
we all turned to look at each other, thinking it must have 
touched somewhere. One burst about five yards over 
us. Another burst fifteen yards from the Mersey, and a 
second hit her sounding boom. We could see the white 
smoke of the discharge and fired lyddite, but the object 
was invisible. 

"It was getting dusk as we got outside at full speed. 
The secure was sounded at about 4:45. We had been at 
general quarters for thirteen hours, and eleven of them 



i 34 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

had been under fire. Outside the other ships were wait- 
ing for us near Komo Island, and we went straight along- 
side the Trent. Each ship cheered us as we passed. The 
Mersey put her wounded on the Trent, and then pushed 
off to bury the dead. 

"Tuesday, July 6, was the day of the first attempt, and 
one of the worst I ever had or am likely to have. We 
were at our stations from 3:45 a.m. till 4:45 p.m., and 
eleven hours of that were under fire. The engine-room 
people were not relieved the whole time, and they were 
down there the whole time in a temperature of I32°-I35° ! 
It was hot up in the top— but child's play to the engine 
room." 

SUCCESS 

On July 1 1 the second attack was made, but made in a 
very different manner from the first. Once more let us 
allow the same writer to complete the story: 

"We went to General Quarters at 10:40 a.m. and were 
inside the entrance by 11:40. How well we seemed to 
know the place! I knew exactly where the beastly field 
guns at the mouth would open fire and exactly when they 
would cease — as we pushed in, and so if their shots went 
over us they would land on the opposite bank among their 
own troops. Very soon came the soft whistle of the shell, 
then again and again — but we were nearing the entrance 
and they turned on the Mersey. They hit her twice, 
wounding two men and knocking down the after 6-inch 
gun crew — none was hurt, however. I spotted a boat 
straight ahead making across the river for dear life — they 
may only have been natives, but we fired the 6-inch at 
them till they leapt ashore and disappeared. 

"Up the river we went. I knew each creek, and almost 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 135 

each tree, and as before we blazed into them just before 
we passed. 

"We left the Mersey at the place where we anchored 
last time in the hope that she would draw the Koenigsbergs 
fire and leave us a free hand. The Koenigsberg, however, 
fired one salvo at her and then for the rest of the day con- 
centrated on us. She was plugging us for seventeen min- 
utes before we could return her fire. The salvoes of four 
were dropping closer than ever if possible and afterwards 
almost every man in the ship found a bit of German shell 
on board as a souvenir. They were everywhere — in the 
sandbags, on the decks, round the engine room — but not 
a soul was even scratched ! 

"We went on higher up the river than last time and 
finally anchored just at the top of 'our' old island. As 
the after 6-inch gun's crew were securing the stern anchor 
two shells fell, one on either side, within three feet of the 
side, and drenched the quarter-deck. It was a very crit- 
ical time. If she hit us we were probably finished, and 
she came as near as possible without actually touching. 
I had bet $s. that she would start with salvoes of four guns, 
and I won my bet. They did not last long, however, once 
we opened fire. It was a near thing, and had to end 
pretty quickly one way or the other. We had received 
orders that she must be destroyed, and the captain, the 
night before, had told all hands assembled on the quarter- 
deck that we had to do it. We intended to go up nearer 
and nearer, and if necessary sight her. Of course we 
could not have gone through it — but there is no doubt 
that on the nth it was either the monitors or the Koen- 
igsberg. 

"We had no sooner anchored and laid the guns (the 
chart proved to be one mile out in the distance from us 



136 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

to the Koenigsberg!) than the aeroplane signalled she was 
ready to spot. Our first four salvoes, at about one minute 
interval, were all signalled as 'Did not observe fall of 
shot/ We came down 400, then another 400 and more 
to the left. The next was spotted as 200 yards over and 
about 200 to the right. The next 150 short and 100 to 
the left. The necessary orders were sent to the guns, and 
at the seventh salvo we hit with one and were just over 
with the other. We hit eight times in the next twelve 
shots ! It was frightfully exciting. The Koenigsberg was 
now firing salvoes of three only. The aeroplane signalled 
all hits were forward, so we came a little left to get her 
amidships. The machine suddenly signalled 'Am hit: 
coming down; send a boat/ And there she was about 
half way between us and the Koenigsberg planing down. 
As they fell they continued to signal our shots, for we, of 
course, kept firing. The aeroplane fell into the water 
about 150 yards from the Mersey and turned a somersault; 
one man was thrown clear, but the other had a struggle 
to get free. Finally both got away and were swimming 
for ten minutes before the Mersey s motor-boat reached 
them — beating ours by a short head. They were unin- 
jured and as merry as crickets! 

"We kept on firing steadily the whole time, as we knew 
we were hitting — about one salvo a minute. The Koenigs- 
berg was now firing two guns; it is hard to be certain, as 
there was much to do and a good noise going on. Still, 
within seventeen minutes of our opening fire I noticed 
and logged it down that she was firing two. She may have 
been reduced to that before, but she never fired more after. 

"In a very short time there was a big explosion from 
the direction of the Koenigsberg, and from then on she was 
never free from smoke — sometimes more, sometimes less; 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 137 

at one moment belching out clouds of black smoke, then 
yellow, with dull explosions from time to time. We kept 
on firing regularly ourselves, one salvo to the minute — or 
perhaps two salvoes in three minutes, but the gun-layers 
were told to keep cool and make sure of their aim. There 
was one enormous explosion which shot up twice as high 
as the Koenigsberg s masts, and the resulting smoke was 
visible from our deck. The men sent up a huge cheer. 

"For some time now we had had no reply from the 
Koenigsberg. At 12:53 I fancy she fired one gun, but I 
was not certain. She certainly did not fire afterwards. 
As our guns were getting hot we increased the range from 
9,550 to 9,575, and later to 9,625 — -as when hot the shots 
are apt to fall short. Fine columns of smoke, black, 
white, and yellow, and occasional dull reports rewarded 
us, but we were making no mistake and kept at it. The 
aeroplane was not available, and we had no one to spot 
for us, remember; still we could see the K's masts from 
our foretop, and the smoke, etc., told its own tale. 

"Another aeroplane turned up, and we now signalled 
the Mersey to pass on up stream and open fire nearer. 
She gave us a great cheer as she passed. 

"We raised our topmast and had a look at the Koenigs- 
berg. She was a fine sight. One mast was leaning over 
and the other was broken at the maintop, and smoke was 
pouring out of the mast as out of a chimney. The funnels 
were gone, and she was a mass of smoke and flame from 
end to end. We had done all the firing which had de- 
stroyed her. The Mersey only started afterwards. That 
was part of the plan. Only one ship ivas to fire at a time, 
and then there could be no possible confusion in the spotting 
corrections; it was a lesson we learned on the Tuesday 
before! We started. The Mersey was then to move up 



i 3 8 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

past her and fire for an hour and so on. Fortunately it 
was not necessary, and as it turned out would have been 
impossible. If we had gone on we should probably be 
there now! When the Mersey passed us she struck a bar 
about ijOCO yards higher up, and after trying to cross in 
two different places 100 yards apart, anchored for firing. 
There was only eight feet of water on the bar and the tide 
was falling. If we had got up we should probably have 
had to wait twelve hours for high tide, and probably the 
Germans would have annoyed us from the banks! 

"The Mersey fired about twenty salvoes and made 
several hits, and as the aeroplane had signalled ( 0. K/ 
(target destroyed) we prepared to leave the river. Before 
we went the Gunnery Lieutenant and myself went to the 
top of the mast to get a better view, and I took a photo 
of the smoke, resting the camera on the very top of the 
topmast! The Captain came up too, and there were the 
three of us clinging to the lightning conductor with one 
arm, glasses in the other, and our feet on the empty oil 
drum we had fixed up there as a crow's-nest. 

"Just as we were starting back we saw some telegraph 
poles crossing a creek behind us. It was undoubtedly 
the communication used by the German spotters. We 
let fly with everything and smashed them up. A pole is 
not an easy thing to hit, and I expect the destruction of 
those two cost the Government about £300 in ammunition. 

"All the way down we swept the banks and made up 
our minds to knock out the field guns at the mouth if we 
possibly could. We tried our best, but I don't think we 
touched them. They fired on us till we were out of range. 
They did not hit — but I saw one fragment about six inches 
by one inch picked up on the boat deck. 

"Two tugs were waiting over the bar 3 and after giving 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 139 

us a cheer took us on tow to help us back to Trent. The 
Weymouth, with the Admiral on board, came round and 
then passed us at speed; all hands lined the ship and, led 
by the small white figure of the Admiral on the bridge, 
gave us three splendid cheers. It was one of the finest 
sights I have ever seen. We answered back — and what 
a difference there was to our cheers of Tuesday last. We 
made about three times the noise. . . . 

"I went to the Captain's cabin for half an hour to copy 
out the notes I had taken. From the very first shot we 
fired I kept a record of every shot fired by the 6-inch guns, 
and all I could see or hear round about, writing some- 
thing every minute, i.e. 12:37 2 guns. H.T. J.M. 12.38 
2 guns. H.T. 12:384 (Koenigsberg firing 2). Column of 
smoke; aeroplane hit and coming down, etc. 

"I ought to explain that 'J.M.,' 'B.F.,' 'F.20,' 
'G.i 5,' 'H.T.,' and so on are signals from the aero- 
planes. 'H.T.' means 'a hit.' In order to make sure 
of the right letters having passed the man shouts not 
'H.T.' alone, 'H. for Harry, T for Tommy,' and then 
there can be no confusion. The man at the voice pipe 
in the conning tower simply roared out 'H. for Harry, 
T. for Tommy,' each time it was signalled. Well, when 
I was making my copy in his cabin on the way back, the 
Captain came in for a moment. He leaned his hand 
quietly on my shoulder and with a huge sigh said, 'If 
ever I live to have a son, his name shall be Harry Tommy!' 
I firmly believe he meant it too, at the time! " 

If the people in Severn and Mersey had had a narrow 
squeak for it, not once but a dozen times, from Koenigs- 
berg s salvoes, the spotting party in the aeroplane must 
have had just as exciting a time. And, as we have seen 
from the foregoing account, with them Koenigsberg was 



i 4 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

more fortunate. On July nth everything was against 
Lieutenant Cull, the first pilot to go up, and Flight-Sub- 
Lieutenant Arnold, who was acting as observer. To begin 
with it was a cloudy day, and the machine had to be kept 
dangerously low if the observer was to do his work. The 
aeroplane got over the target at about 12:20, while Mersey 
was firing hard. But this fire of the Mersey had nothing 
to do with the organized effort to destroy the enemy. It 
was merely a blind — an effort to get the enemy's observer 
on land to deflect the fire on that ship on to Mersey, while 
Severn got ready for the real work. The aeroplane, there- 
fore, paid no attention to Mersey s fire and telegraphed 
no observations. Ten minutes later Severn opened fire 
and Mersey ceased. Mersey s diversion did for a time 
bring Koenigsbergs guns in her direction. But no sooner 
did Severn open fire than she got the full benefit of Koen- 
igsbergs salvoes of four, which followed each other at in- 
tervals of about a minute. Five minutes after Severn 
opened at 12:30, Koenigsbergs salvoes began to straddle 
her. Nine minutes after Severn opened fire the aeroplane 
signalled first hit. And less than ten minutes after that 
Lieutenant Arnold telegraphed 'We are hit; send boat/ 
In point of fact, it is probable that the aeroplane's engine 
had been slightly injured earlier. For, dangerously low 
as the machine had to fly at the beginning, it was found 
impossible to keep even at that height, and as it got lower 
and slower, it obviously became an easier mark for the 
Koenigsbergs 12-pounders. At 12:46 a terrific bump was 
felt in the machine, and shortly afterwards the engine 
broke up with a rattle and a crash, and there was nothing 
for it but to start sliding down. Imagine the situation! 
The machine, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet in the air, 
nearly three miles from the monitors; the only possible 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSRERG" 141 

hope of safety to make this long glide and then to land — 
if the bull may be permitted — in a narrow strip of river 
bordered by impenetrable bush — the bush dotted with 
lofty trees! If the machine missed the river and hit the 
trees, it was certain death wherever it landed. If it missed 
the trees and hit the river, there was palpably no safety 
unless it was within a very short distance of the monitors. 
For nowhere else did the pilot and observer stand the 
faintest chance of rescue. A situation more absolutely 
desperate could hardly be imagined. 

It was certainly not one in which the seemingly doomed 
occupants could have been blamed if they had thought 
of their safety and of nothing else. But while the pilot 
was, quite properly, concentrating his attention on per- 
forming as nice a feat in flying as can be imagined, Flight- 
Lieutenant Arnold, content to leave this matter in the 
skilled hands of his comrade, continued imperturbably to 
carry on his duties. 

Severn, having got the range, naturally continued firing. 
Flight-Lieutenant Arnold, having been sent up to observe, 
continued observing, and each shot that he observed, on 
what must have seemed his last glide to certain death, 
was signalled to the control parties on board the monitor. 
The gist of this was that six out often shots were hitting, 
and apparently were hitting steadily, but all were striking 
Koenigsberg in the bows. Arnold's last achievement as 
an observer was to deflect this fire amidships and to the 
stern. And he had hardly succeeded before the 'plane 
crashed into the water 500 yards from the Mersey. Mer- 
sey had her motor-boat ready and it was sent full speed to 
the rescue. Arnold had no difficulty in getting himself 
free, but Lieutenant Cull was not so fortunate. In the 
excitement of his task he had forgotten to loosen the straps 



i 4 2 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

that held his belt and feet, and was fairly under water 
before he realized his predicament. How he wrenched 
himself free of these impediments is somewhat difficult 
to understand, and it is not surprising that his apparel 
suffered somewhat severely from his efforts. When he 
came to the surface he found Arnold scrambling about the 
wrecked machine in search of him, and both were got 
safely into the boat. The machine, smashed and water- 
logged in the river, was of course past saving, and there 
was nothing for it but to demolish it. Take it all in 
all, few prettier pieces of work in the air — whether we 
look at the flight craftsmanship of the thing, or the prac- 
tical use that the last moments of flight were put to — have 
yet been recorded. 

A PROBLEM IN CONTROL 

There are several features in these operations that are 
of great interest. To begin with, the destruction of a 
ship by the indirect fire of another ship had not, so far as 
I know, been systematically attempted before. There 
was indeed a story of Queen Elizabeth having sunk a 
Turkish transport by a shot fired clean over the Gallipoli 
peninsula. In the case of the Queen Elizabeth's victim 
the target was not only incredibly far off but actually 
under way. But this must be regarded as amongst the 
flukes of war, if indeed that may be called a fluke when the 
right measure had been taken to ensure success. Still, 
it was more probable that the attempt might be made a 
hundred times without a hit being made than that the first 
shot fired should have landed straight on the target. But 
here on the Rufigi the monitors had gone up after making 
ample preparations and after full practice, to achieve a 
particular object. It was to destroy a very small ship at 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 143 

a range which, for the gun employed, must be considered 
extraordinarily great. Ten thousand yards is relatively 
a longer range for a 6-inch gun than is, say, 18,000 for a 
15-inch. But while in this respect the task proposed was 
extraordinarily difficult, there was one element present 
that would distinguish it from almost any other known 
use of naval guns. In engaging land forts, both on the 
Belgian coast and off Gallipoli, there had been ample 
experience with a stationary target engaged by a station- 
ary ship. But here the firing ship was not only stationary 
in the sense that it was moored, but was practically at 
rest in that it was lying in smooth water with no roll or 
pitch to render the gun-layers' aim uncertain. The current 
did cause a certain veering, but not a sufficient movement 
to embarrass laying. But if in this respect the conditions 
were easy, they were extraordinarily difficult in every 
other. The monitors, for instance, were as much exposed 
to Koenigsberg 5 fire as was Koenigsberg to that of the 
monitors, and whereas Koenigsberg s guns could be spotted 
from a position on shore the monitors' fire had to be 
spotted by aeroplane. The whole of the operations of 
Severn and Mersey then were not only carried out under 
fire, but under an attack that on the second day as well 
as the first was extraordinarily persistent and extra- 
ordinarily accurate. That in the course of two days only 
one of our ships was hit, and that one only once, must be 
considered a curiosity, for so good were the gunnery 
arrangements of Koenigsberg that each monitor when 
under fire was straddled again and again by salvoes, and 
when not straddled had the 4.2 shells falling in bunches 
either just short or just over them. The explanation of 
her having failed to get more hits than she did, while 
ultimately Severn s was completely effective, does not lie 



144 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

in any inferiority of skill, but almost entirely in the fact 
that the range, if exceptionally great for a 6-inch gun, 
was almost fabulous for a 4.2, and next that Koenigsberg 
was a much larger target than either Severn or Mersey. 
Koenigsberg was probably aground, and therefore showing 
from three to four feet more of her side than she would at 
sea. Monitors are a craft with a very, very low free- 
board, with a comparatively small central house built 
up amidships. As a point-blank target Koenigsberg 
would probably be more than twice the superficial area 
that either Mersey or Severn would present. The contrast 
between them as virtual targets, that is, the target that 
would be presented to the shell as it descended from a 
height upon the ship, would not, of course, be so great, 
because the monitors were each of them wider than the 
German cruiser, but even as a virtual target the Koenigs- 
berg was much more favourable for the British guns. 
But the master difficulty of the situation was for the 
men on the spot, without previous experience of indirect 
fire, and unaided apparently by any advice from headquart- 
ers as to the result of service experiments elsewhere, 
to extemporize all the processes for finding and keeping 
the range of a target invisible from the ship. The two 
essential elements in these processes were (1) for the 
observer in the aeroplane to note where each shot fell, 
and (2) to inform the ship that fired it exactly what the 
position of the impact was, whether to the right or to the 
left, over or short, and an approximate measurement in 
yards of its distance from the target. No one of those 
concerned had ever engaged in any similar operation. 
The aviators had not only never carried observers to spot 
naval gunfire, they had none of them ever even flown in 
the tropics, where the conditions of flight differ altogether 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 145 

from those in more temperate zones. The observers were 
even more new to the work than the aviators. Apparently 
some of them had never been in flying machines before. 
They not only had to learn the elements of spotting, they 
had to become familiar with the means of sending com- 
munications. There seems at one time to have been 
considerable doubt as to the best means to employ for 
communication. The means would have to include not 
only a system of sending messages, whether by wireless, 
by lights flashing a Morse code or otherwise, but the 
production of a code as well. When these points were 
settled, the preliminary practices of Mafia Island gave 
what appeared to be sufficient experience to show that 
right principles were being followed. Only when this 
practice had given satisfactory results was the first 
attempt of July 6th made. 

In the course of that day's firing the observers reported 
eight possible hits during the first phase of the firing, and 
none afterwards. Once or twice smoke was seen to issue 
from Koenigsberg and in the course of the day the number 
of guns in her salvo fell from five to three, and ultimately 
she was employing only a single gun. The monitors had 
fired approximately 500 rounds to obtain these hits, and 
had probably double this number fired at them. Opinions 
differed as to the result, but that some thought Koenigs- 
berg had finally been destroyed is apparent from the 
character of the Rear-Admiral's message to the Admiralty. 
Reflection, however, appears to have made it clear that 
Koenigsberg was very far indeed from being really out of 
action, and it became necessary to inquire why there 
should have been any uncertainty in the matter. The 
crux of the position was this. Fire had opened at seven 
in the morning and continued till nearly half-past four 



146 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

in the afternoon. But when the character of the messages 
transmitted by the observers came under critical examina- 
tion, it seemed almost certain that no hits were made at 
all after the first hour. Every kind of explanation for so 
indecisive and disappointing a result was examined. It 
was disappointing because it had been shown that it was 
quite practical to make hits, and it seemed as if there 
must be something wrong if the hitting could not be 
continued. Every possible cause of breakdown was put 
under examination. Had there been anything wrong 
with the wireless transmitters in the aeroplanes? Had 
the receiving gear in the monitors broken down? Were 
the observers too inexperienced, hasty, or unreliable? 
Had the guns become worn or too hot? Were the sights 
at fault? But when it came to the point each of these 
criticisms broke down. There was no reason to distrust 
the observers, and as all the ships in the offing had re- 
ceived the messages, the transmitting gear must have 
been above suspicion. Then the monitors' records tallied 
with the ships' records, so that there was nothing wrong 
with the receivers. When the observers themselves were 
put through their paces, it seemed that over an area of at 
least half a mile, say 600 yards short of the target and 200 
over, there was really no possibility of making mistakes 
about where the shots fell, for in this area it was all either 
open water or dry sand. But outside of this compara- 
tively narrow area there was thick bush, and to an observer 
at the height of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet even a burst- 
ing shell falling in a forest whose trees ran from between 
70 to 150 feet high, affords a very uncertain mark. And 
after 8 p.m. it seemed that only very few shells fell in the 
belt where their impact was visible, and that sometimes, 
for very considerable periods, every shot seemed to go into 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 147 

the forest. Could the guns have suddenly become 
absolutely unreliable? But tests were made, and the 
guns proved to be quite as accurate as they were before 
the firing began, and indeed the exactitude of the results 
precluded this form of error from explaining the failure 
to complete the business. 

At last, when the firing times of the two ships were 
compared with the observers' records of the pitching of 
the shell, the true explanation leapt into sight. The 
whole show had broken down over the old difficulty of 
the identification of shots. The people in the aeroplanes 
could not tell whether a particular shot had been fired by 
Mersey or Severn, and as both ships got the message, 
neither could tell whose shot had been observed. It 
followed therefore that the consequent correction was 
often put on to the wrong gun. Thus, for example, 
suppose Mersey had fired a shot 300 yards over the target 
that fell in bush and was invisible to the observers, while 
Severn had fired one that was 200 yards short and visible. 
The observers would wireless 200 short, whereupon the 
Mersey would think that this message was intended for 
her, and raise her sight by this amount. Her next round, 
of course, would go still farther into the bush, and suppose 
this was visible or partially visible to the observer, who 
might perhaps have missed Severn s next round, he might 
telegraph back 500 or 600 over, a correction that Severn 
might take to herself, and lose her next shot in the bush 
short of the target. The men on the Rufigi in short 
discovered for themselves, by their experiences on this 
first arduous day against the Koenigsberg, that the problem 
of correcting the fire of two separated batteries by the work 
of a single observer is so exceedingly difficult of solution 
as to make it hardly worth attempting. The lessons so 



148 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

painfully brought home were put to immediate and 
most successful use. It was resolved on the second 
attempt that only one monitor should fire at a time. This 
was not of course the only experience of value obtained 
in the first day's operation for when all the results were 
collated and compared, a pretty exact knowledge of the 
actual range from the chosen anchorage to the target was 
obtained, so that on the second day there were fewer 
initial rounds lost before shell began to fall in the immedi- 
ate surroundings of the enemy, where the position of each 
could be verified. When all ambiguity as to the meaning 
of corrections was removed, the process of finding 
the target and keeping the range became exceedingly 
simple. 

As will be seen from the narrative, the serious work of 
the second day began when Severn opened fire about half- 
past twelve. Nine minutes later, after quite deliberate 
fire, she obtained her first hit, and from then on continued 
hitting w^ith great regularity. But before she had been 
firing ten minutes the spotting aeroplane was disabled 
and came down. Though the Koenigsberg herself was 
invisible, the columns of lyddite fumes and smoke sent 
up by the hits could be seen over the trees, and such 
columns indicated that hits were being made very fre- 
quently. Within a quarter of an hour of the first hit, 
Koenigsberg ceased her return fire, and shortly after this 
a huge volume of smoke of a totally different colour from 
that sent up by lyddite indicated that there had been a 
great explosion in the ship. When the second aeroplane 
came out to resume the work of spotting, Mersey took up 
the work of firing in Severn s place. Severn had ceased 
fire at i :35 and Mersey opened at a quarter past two. But 
it soon became clear that it was unnecessary for her to 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 149 

proceed with the work, and that with the explosion at 
1:15 the business of the Koenigsberg was finished. 

What two ships firing continuously for eight hours on 
July 6th had failed to achieve, a single ship had accom- 
plished in probably fifteen minutes. It was the most 
perfect exemplification imaginable of the difference in 
results that wrong and right systems of gunnery produce. 
The skill shown on the second day was no better than on 
the first. It was a change of method that made the 
difference. 

What is of special interest is this. Up to the year 1909 
it appeared quite premature to discuss methods of con- 
centrating the fire of several ships on a single distant 
target, until right methods had been discovered for 
making sure of hitting it with the guns of a single ship. 
But by the winter of 1909 there seemed to be sufficient 
experience to show that a complete solution of the simpler 
problem was assured, and that the time had come for 
considering how two or more ships could combine their 
armament. The difficulty of the matter was soon made 
obvious. While great guns do not all shoot exactly alike, 
it is possible to ascertain by experiment the individual 
differences of all the guns in a single ship, and to vary 
the sight scales so that, at all critical ranges, they should 
give identical results. But what can be done for a single 
battery of eight or ten guns cannot be done by experiment 
for two units of such batteries. If then two ships are to 
be employed at the same target, it was the very essence 
of the matter if two processes were carried on simultane- 
ously to obtain one result, that each process should be so 
organized as to run as if the other were not going at all. 
Now ships' guns at sea can be corrected only from posi- 
tions high up in the masts. It therefore became clear 



1 5 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

that if the firing ship allowed a fixed interval, say three or 
four seconds, to elapse after a sister ship had fired, before 
sending her own salvo at the enemy, it would be quite 
easy, by keeping a record of the time of flight of the pro- 
jectiles, to pick out her own amongst the salvoes falling 
in rapid succession on the target, so that there should be 
no possibility of her mixing up her own shells with her 
neighbours'. It is now many years since it was suggested 
that gongs driven by a clockwork device, which could be 
set to the time of flight, would simplify this method of 
identification. Suppose the time of flight to be twelve 
seconds, the gong would be set to this interval and the 
clockwork started into motion simultaneously with the 
firing of the salvo. The observers watch the target and 
pay no attention to any shots that fall, except those whose 
incidence coincided with the ringing of the gong. 

The essence of this system was the ear-marking, so to 
speak, of each separate salvo as it went away. But it 
was manifestly not a principle on which observers placed 
at a distance from a ship could work. If they were to do 
their work they must employ some totally different means 
of identification. Else indirect firing could only be carried 
on by one ship at a time. 

My correspondence in 1909 and 1910 shows that these 
principles were fully grasped by many gunnery officers in 
the navy in these years. And I must confess I was ex- 
tremely astonished when our proceedings at the Darda- 
nelles in March and February and April showed that there 
was no common practice in the matter throughout the 
navy. At last, in the month of May 191 5, I set out these 
elementary principia of indirect firing in Land and Water. 
"The difficulty in correcting the fire of a multitude of 
ships is, it may be added, twofold, because each salvo 



THE DESTRUCTION OF "KOENIGSBERG" 151 

must be identified as coming from a particular ship, and 
then that ship be informed of the correction. There is 
apparently no escape from the necessity of having a sepa- 
rate spotter for each ship. If the spotter is in an indepen- 
dent position, the obstacles in the way of this double task 
are considerable. And aeroplanes are not a satisfactory 
substitute. At best an aeroplane can help one ship only." 
It will be observed that in July the officers at the Rufigi 
had to work them all out again for themselves ! 

Nothing could better illustrate the curious individualism 
which governs the organization of our sea forces. Each 
ship, each squadron, each fleet seems to come to the study 
of these things as if they were virgin problems, entirely 
unaided by advice or information from the central author- 
ities, so that there is not only no uniformity of practice — 
in itself a not unmitigated evil — but what is really serious, 
a total absence of uniformity of knowledge. I am the 
last person in the world to suggest that all naval affairs 
should be regulated in every petty detail from Whitehall. 
There are quite enough forces at work to repress freedom 
of thought or restrict liberty to investigate and experiment 
in the fullest possible way. But there is surely the widest 
possible difference between a restraining tyranny and an 
intelligent system of communicating proved principles 
and the results of successful practice. 



CHAPTER X 

Capture of H.I.G.M.S. "Emden" 

On November ii, 1914, the Secretary of the Admiralty 
issued a statement which, after referring to the self- 
internment of Koenigsberg in the Rufigi River, and the 
measures taken to keep her there, proceeded as follows: 

"Another large combined operation by fast cruisers, 
against the Emden, has been for some time in progress. In 
this search, which covered an immense area, the British 
cruisers have been aided by French, Russian, and Japan- 
ese vessels working in harmony. His Majesty's Austra- 
lian ships Melbourne and Sydney were also included in 
these movements. 

"On Monday morning news was received that the 
Emden, which had been completely lost after her action 
with the Jemchug, had arrived at Keeling, Cocos Island, 
and had landed an armed party to destroy the wireless 
station and cut the cable. 

"Here she was caught and forced to fight by His 
Majesty's Australian ship Sydney (Captain John C. T. 
Glossop, R.N.). A sharp action took place, in which the 
Sydney suffered the loss of three killed and fifteen 
wounded. \ 

"The Emden was driven ashore and burnt. Her losses 
in personnel are reported as very heavy. All possible 
assistance is being given the survivors by various ships 
which have been despatched to the scene. 

"With the exception of the German squadron now off 

152 



CAPTURE OF H.I.G.M.S. "EMDEN" 153 

the coast of Chile, the whole of the Pacific and Indian 
oceans are now clear of the enemy's warships." 

The material news was that Emden had been caught 
and sunk. She was one of Germany's small fast cruisers, 
armed like the rest with 4.2 guns, and therefore no very 
formidable match for the ship that met and encountered 
her. The work of her destruction, we afterwards learned, 
had been done by Captain Glossop of Sydney, with a rap- 
idity and neatness unsurpassed in any naval engagement 
of the war before or, indeed, since. But at the moment 
when the news came, the method of the thing was of far 
less importance than the thing itself, for it is no exaggera- 
tion to say that at the end of the first week of November 
the spirits of the nation were at an exceedingly low ebb. 
There was a marked uneasiness as to the naval position. 
The successes of the Fleet had been achieved without fight- 
ing, and it looked as if, in the naval war, we were not only 
watching, almost abjectly, for the initiative of the enemy, 
but that we were unable to defeat that initiative when it 
was taken. The public therefore forgot that 98 per cent, 
of our trade was carrying on as before, that our sea com- 
munications with our armies were under no threat, that 
the enemy's battle force was keeping completely within the 
security of its harbours. There had been but one active 
demonstration of British naval strength — the affair of the 
Bight of Heligoland. But a dropping fire of bad news 
had made our nerves acutely sensitive. It was submar- 
ines people feared most. Writing at the time, I summar- 
ized the general attitude of the public as it appeared to me: 

"Long before the war began the public had been pre- 
pared by an active agitation to believe that the submarine 
had superseded all other forms of naval force, so that 
when one cruiser after another was sent to the bottom, 



i 54 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

almost within hail of the English coast, people really began 
to believe that no ship could be safe, and that (under a 
form of attack that was equally impossible to foresee, 
evade, or resist) our vaunted strength in Dreadnoughts 
must in time dwindle altogether away. Then there were 
not wanting circumstances that, superficially at least, 
looked as if the Admiralty's war plans and distribution 
of the Fleet were not adequate to their purpose. In at 
least one conspicuous instance, the resources of our enemy 
had been too great either for the means or the measures 
of our admirals. War had not been declared more than 
a day or two before the Goeben and Breslau made their 
way through the Mediterranean and escaped unengaged 
to the Dardanelles. The public knew that we had two 
powerful squadrons of ships in these waters, one over- 
whelmingly stronger than the German force; the other, 
on almost every conceivable train of reasoning, at least 
a match for it.* It seemed utterly humiliating that, 
with the French Fleet as our allies, and with Germany 
having none, so important a unit as the Goeben should have 
got away scot-free. Then it was not long before we heard 
of the depredations of the Emden, and of British ships 
being chased and threatened in the North and South 
Atlantic by other German cruisers. 

"Against all these things could be set more cheering 
incidents. Twice the North Sea was swept from top to 
bottom by the British Fleet, the first resulting in the sink- 
ing of three, if not four, cruisers and one destroyer, and in 
the driving off, apparently hopelessly crippled, of two 
other cruisers and a great number of smaller craft. The 
second sweep seemed to show that the entire German 



*I should not say this now. 



CAPTURE OF H.I.G.M.S. "EMDEN" 155 

Fleet had sought safety in port. Then the Carmania sank 
the Cap Trafalgar, and the Undaunted, with a small flotilla 
of destroyers, ran down and sank an equal flotilla of the 
enemy's. But these were not sufficient to outweigh the 
anxiety which the German submarine successes had caused 
nor did they restore public confidence in the dispositions 
of the Admiralty in distant seas, where there were still 
two powerful armed cruisers, a large number of light 
cruisers, and an unknown number of armed merchantmen 
still at large. 

"The whole thing culminated in a series of very disturb- 
ing events. First it was announced that German mines 
had been laid north of Ireland, and that the Manchester 
Commerce had been sunk by striking one. Were any of 
our waters safe for our own battle squadrons, if the enemy 
could lay mines with impunity right under our noses? 
This was swiftly followed by our hearing that the Good 
Hope and Monmouth had been sunk by the Gneisenau and 
Scharnhorst off Coronel. Then came the sinking of the 
Hermes and the Niger, one in mid-Channel, the other lying 
in the anchorage at Deal. And just when nervous people 
were wondering whether the mine and submarine had 
really driven the English Fleet ofFthe sea, only to find that 
ports were not safe, there came the startling news that a 
German squadron had appeared off Yarmouth. . . . 
To many it looked as if this was the last straw. We had 
sacrificed four cruisers to patrol the neutral shipping in 
these waters, and when, almost too late, it was discovered 
that our methods made them too easy targets for submar- 
ines, we announced the closing of the North Sea. The 
public undoubtedly understood by this that, if we closed 
the North Sea to neutrals, we had closed it to the German 
Fleet also, and the appearance of this squadron so soon 



156 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

after the announcement was made, and its escape back to 
its own harbours without being cut off and brought to 
action, made people ask if the closing of the North Sea 
had not really meant that Great Britain had resigned its 
possession to the enemy." 

It is difficult, this being the situation, to overrate how 
cheering was the news of Emdens destruction. 

If the Canadian naval contingent were the first of our 
Colonial subjects to shed their blood in this war, then cer- 
tainly the Australian ship Sydney was the first to assert 
Great Britain's command over distant seas, by the triump- 
hant destruction of a ship that dared to dispute it. We 
began our debt to the Colonies early. 

Captain Glossop's despatch was not published till Jan- 
uary i, but a good many other accounts had been pub- 
lished before, and some have become available since the 
action. 

A very interesting letter from an officer of the Sydney 
was printed in The Times of December 15. With this 
account was also published, later on, a plan of the action 
which, with certain corrections which I have reason to 
believe are required, is reproduced here. A second ac- 
count, by another officer in the Sydney, has been sent to me 
so that it is possible to add some not uninteresting or 
unimportant details to Captain Glossop's story. But of 
all of the accounts Captain Glossop's is at once the most 
interesting and the most complete, and I print it in full, 
because it is in every respect a model of what a despatch 
should be. 

"H.M.A.S. Sydney, at Colombo, 
"15th November, 1914. 

"Sir: — I have the honour to report that whilst on escort 
duty with the Convoy under the charge of Captain Silver, 



CAPTURE OF H.I.G.M.S. "EMDEN" 157 

H.M.A.S. Melbourne, at 6:30 a.m., on Monday, 9th Nov- 
ember, a wireless message from Cocos was heard reporting 
that a foreign warship was off the entrance. I was ordered 
to raise steam for full speed at 7:0 a.m. and proceed 
thither. I worked up to 20 knots, and at 9:15 a.m. 
sighted land ahead and almost immediately the smoke of 
a ship, which proved to be H.I.G.M.S. Emden coming out 
towards me at a great rate. At 9:40 a.m. fire was opened, 
she firing the first shot. I kept my distance as much as 
possible to obtain the advantage of my guns. Her fire 
was very accurate and rapid to begin with, but seemed to 
slacken very quickly, all casualties occurring in this ship 
almost immediately. First the foremost funnel of her 
went, secondly the foremast, and she was badly on fire 
aft, then the second funnel went, and lastly the third 
funnel, and I saw she was making for the beach of North 
Keeling Island, where she grounded at 11 :20 a.m. I gave 
her two more broadsides and left her to pursue a merchant 
ship which had come up during the action. 

2. "Although I had guns on this merchant ship at odd 
times during the action, I had not fired, and as she was 
making off fast I pursued and overtook her at 12.10, firing 
a gun across her bows and hoisting International Code 
Signal to stop, which she did. I sent an armed boat and 
found her to be the S.S. Buresk, a captured British collier, 
with 18 Chinese crew, 1 English steward, 1 Norwegian 
cook, and a German Prize Crew of 3 Officers, 1 Warrant 
Officer and 12 men. The ship unfortunately was sinking, 
the Kingston knocked out and damaged to prevent re- 
pairing, so I took all on board, fired 4 shells into her and 
returned to Emden, passing men swimming in the water, 
for whom I left two boats I was towing from Buresk. 

3. "On arriving again ofF Emden she still had her 



158 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 







> 






*- ; U*£ <f^.V|> g 



p/ -tt«CTi«*I 
'({A»tt %TMioh) 



Plan of Sydney and Emden in action 



colours up at mainmast head. I inquired by signal, 
International Code, 'Will you surrender?' and received 
a reply in Morse, 'What signal? No signal hooks.' I 
then made in Morse 'Do you surrender?' and subsequently 
'Have you received my signal?' to neither of which did I 
get an answer. The German officers on board gave me to 
understand that the Captain would never surrender, and 
therefore though reluctantly, I again fired at her at 4:30 
p.m., ceasing at 4:35, as she showed white flags and hauled 
down her ensign by sending a man aloft. 



CAPTURE OF H.I.G.M.S. "EMDEN" 159 

4. "I then left Emden and returned and picked up the 
Buresk's two boats, rescuing 2 sailors (5:0 p.m.), who had 
been in the water all day. I returned and sent in one 
boat to Emden, manned by her own prize crew from 
Buresk, and 1 Officer, and stating I would return to their 
assistance next morning. This I had to do, as I was 
desirous to find out the condition of cables and Wireless 
Station at Direction Island. On the passage over I was 
again delayed by rescuing another sailor (6:30 p.m.), 
and by the time I was again ready and approaching 
Direction Island it was too late for the night. 

5. "I lay on and off all night, and communicated with 
Direction Island at 8 :o a.m., 10th November, to find that 
the Emden s party consisting of 3 Officers and 40 men, 
1 launch and 2 cutters had seized and provisioned a 70-ton 
schooner (the Ayesha), having 4 Maxims, with 2 belts to 
each. They left the previous night at six o'clock. The 
Wireless Station was entirely destroyed, 1 cable cut, 1 
damaged, and 1 intact. I borrowed a Doctor and 2 
Assistants, and proceeded as fast as possible to Emden s 
assistance. 

6. "I sent an Officer on board to see the Captain, and 
in view of the large number of prisoners and wounded and 
lack of accommodation, etc., in this ship, and the ab- 
solute impossibility of leaving them where they were, 
he agreed that if I received his Officers and men and all 
wounded 'then as for such time as they remained in 
Sydney they would cause no interference with ship or 
fittings, and would be amenable to the ship's discipline.' 
I therefore set to work at once to tranship them — a most 
difficult operation, and the ship being on the weather side 
of the Island and the send alongside * very heavy. The 

*/. e. the rise and fall of the sea. 



160 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

conditions in the Emden were indescribable. I received 
the last from her at 5 :o p.m., then had to go round to the 
lee side to pick up 20 more men who had managed to get 
ashore from the ship. 

7. "Darkness came on before this could be accom- 
plished, and the ship again stood off and on all night, 
resuming operations at 5:0 a.m. on nth November, a 
cutter's crew having to land with stretchers to bring 
wounded round to embarking point. A German Officer, 
a Doctor, died ashore the previous day. The ship in 
the meantime ran over to Direction Island to return 
their Doctor and Assistants, send cables, and was back 
again at 10:0 a.m., embarked the remainder of wounded 
and proceeded for Colombo by 10:35 a.m., Wednesday, 
nth November. 

8. "Total casualties in Sydney: killed 3, severely wound- 
ed (since dead) 1, severely wounded 4, wounded 4, slightly 
wounded 4. In the Emden I can only approximately 
state the killed at 7 Officers and 108 men from Captain's 
statement. I had on board n Officers, 9 Warrant 
Officers, and 191 men, of whom 3 Officers and 53 men 
were wounded, and of this number 1 Officer and 3 men 
have since died of wounds. 

9. "The damage to Sydney 9 s hull and fittings was 
surprisingly small; in all about 10 hits seem to have been 
made. The engine and boiler rooms and funnels escaped 
entirely. 

10. "I have great pleasure in stating that the behaviour 
of the ship's company was excellent in every way, and 
with such a large proportion of young hands and people 
under training it is all the more gratifying. The engines 
worked magnificently, and higher results than trials were 
obtained, and I cannot speak too highly of the Medical 



CAPTURE OF H.I.G.M.S. "EMDEN" 161 

Staff and arrangements on subsequent trip, the ship being 
nothing but a hospital of a most painful description! 
"I have the honour to be, Sir, 

"Your obedient Servant, 
"John C. T. Glossop, 

"Captain." 

The first point of interest in this engagement is the 
rapidity with which the gunfire on both sides became 
effective. Emden made no attempt to get away, and 
opened fire before Sydney did, and at a range of 10,500 
yards. One account says "her first shots fell well to- 
gether for range, but very much spread out for line. 
They were all within twenty yards of the ship." Either 
the gun range-finders were marvels of accuracy, or else 
they had great luck in picking up the range so quickly. 
This account proceeds: "As soon as her first salvo had 
fallen she began to fire very rapidly in salvoes, the rate 
of fire being as high as ten rounds per gun per minute, 
and very accurate for the first ten minutes. " 

I draw the reader's attention particularly to this phrase, 
because it reproduces almost verbatim Commodore 
Tyrwhitt's comment on the fire of the German cruisers 
in his third action of the Heligoland affair. We find the 
same phenomenon at the destruction of Koenigsberg, 
whose guns both throughout the first and second day of 
that affair seem to have had the exact range of the moni- 
tors. This testimony to the accuracy of the enemy's 
fire must be read in connection with Captain Glossop's 
statement, that in all about ten hits seem to have been 
made. All accounts agree that no hits were made after the 
first ten minutes. But if the rate of Emden s fire is 
correctly given, she must have fired 500 rounds in this 



162 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

phase of the action. Ten hits to 500 rounds gives 2 per 
cent, of hits only! 

The explanation, both of the Rufigi monitors and of 
Sydney's comparative immunity, is undoubtedly the 
extreme range at which each action was fought. At 
such ranges a gun of so small a calibre as the 4.2 would 
have to be raised to a very high elevation. The pro- 
jectiles, therefore, would fall very steeply towards the 
target. In conditions like these salvoes may fall just 
short and just over, and even straddle the boat fired at, 
without a single hit being made. 

But of the excellence of the Emdens shooting and of 
her control of fire — so long as the fire was controlled — 
there can be no shadow of doubt whatever. It was obvious 
that if the battleships were equally good, the German 
Fleet would prove a serious foe. We must certainly 
esteem it one of the fortunate chances of this war that 
when Germany was building her Fleet, her naval au- 
thorities were convinced that all fighting would be at 
short range. Their calculation was that at short range 
a rapid and accurate fire of smaller pieces should prove 
just as effective as the slower fire of larger pieces. Her 
cruisers therefore were armed with 4.2's when ours were 
being armed with 6-inch, and her battleships with 11-inch 
guns when ours were being fitted with 12-inch and 13-S's. 
In the case of battleships and battle-cruisers, the German 
constructors had their eye upon a further advantage in 
the adoption of lighter pieces. The weight saved could 
be put, and in fact was put, into a more thorough armoured 
protection. Von Muller, the captain of Emden, when 
he was congratulated, after the capture, on the gallant 
fight put up, was at first seemingly offended. "He 
seemed taken aback and said 'No/ and went away, but 



CAPTURE OF H.I.G.M.S. "EMDEN" 163 

presently he came to me and said, 'Thank you very much 
for saying that, but I was not satisfied; we should have 
done better. You were very lucky in shooting away my 
voice pipes in the beginning.' But if the Germans lost 
their voice pipes, Sydney lost her rangefinder in the open- 
ing salvoes. The German fire control had not survived 
the derangement of its communications. It was not 
possible to extemporize anything to take their place. We 
do not hear that the accuracy of Sydney 9 s fire lost anything 
when the rangefinder went. 

Both ships appeared, in this action, to have employed, 
or at least to have attempted to employ, their torpedoes. 
In an interview with Von Miiller reported from Colombo, 
he is said to have explained that his intention in closing 
Sydney at the opening of the engagement was not to 
lessen the range so as to bring the ballistics of his guns 
to an equality with ours, but to get Sydney within torpedo 
range. Sydney seems certainly to have fired a torpedo 
rather less than half-way through the action when the 
range was at its shortest. But as in the Heligoland affair, 
so here, the difficulties in getting a hit were insuperable. 
That Emden did not fire a torpedo at the same time is 
explained by the fact that the action had not proceeded 
twenty minutes before not only was her steering gear 
wrecked, so that she had to steer by her screws, but her 
submerged torpedo flat also was put out of action. 

All accounts of the action agree upon the excellent 
conduct of the men and boys on board Sydney. A letter 
published in The Times gives us many evidences of this. 
"The hottest part of the action for us was the first half- 
hour. We opened fire from our port guns to begin with. 
I was standing just behind No. 1 port, and the gun-layer 
(Atkins, 1st class Petty Officer) said, 'Shall I load, sir?' 



i6 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

I was surprised, but deadly keen there should be no 'flap,' 
so said, 'No, don't load till you get the order.' Next he 
said, 'Emden's fired, sir.' So I said 'All right, load, but 
don't bring the gun to the ready.' I found out after- 
wards that the order to load had been received by the other 
guns ten minutes before, and my anti-'flap' precautions, 
though they did not the slightest harm, were thrown 
away on Atkins, who was as cool as a cucumber throughout 
the action." It was the boys' quarters on board that 
suffered most from Emdens fire. The same writer says: 

"Our hits were not very serious. We were 'hulled' 
in about three places. The shell that exploded in the 
boys' mess deck, apart from ruining the poor little 
beggars' clothes, provided a magnificent stock of trophies. 
For two or three days they kept finding fresh pieces." 

They were probably consoled for the lost wardrobe 
by this treasure of souvenirs. 

"There are lots of redeeming points in the whole show. 
Best of all was to see the gun's crew fighting their guns 
quite unconcerned. When we were last in Sydney we 
took on board three boys from the training ship Tingira, 
who had volunteered. The captain said, T don't really 
want them, but as they are keen I'll take them.' Now 
the action was only a week or two afterwards, but the 
two out of the three who were directly under my notice 
were perfectly splendid. One little slip of a boy did not 
turn a hair, and worked splendidly. The other boy, a 
very sturdy youngster, carried projectiles from the hoist 
to his gun throughout the action without so much as 
thinking of cover. I do think for two boys absolutely 
new to their work they were splendid."* 

*The (slightly modified) plan of this action is reproduced by the kind per- 
mission of the Editor of the Times. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Career of Von Spee 

At the beginning of hostilities the strategic position in 
the Pacific and Indian oceans should have been one that 
could have caused no possible naval anxiety to the Allies. 
Japan had at once thrown in her lot with us, and as 
we had squadrons in the China Seas, in the Indian Ocean, 
and in Australasia there was, when the forces of our 
eastern allies are added to them, a total naval strength 
incalculably greater than that at the disposal of the enemy. 
But this fact notwithstanding, there was for some months 
extraordinary uncertainty, and the arrangements adopted 
by the Admiralty permitted a serious attack to be made 
on our shipping and involved a tragic disaster to a British 
squadron. The facts of the case are far from being 
completely known, but the main features of the original 
situation and its development make it possible to draw 
certain broad inferences, which are probably correct. 

In the summer of 191 4 the German sea forces at Tsing- 
Tau consisted of two armoured cruisers, two light cruisers, 
certain destroyers and gun-boats. Leaving the destroyers 
and gun-boats behind, Von Spee in the month of June 
abandoned his base at Tsing-Tau, and, after calling at 
Nagasaki, made for the German possessions in the Caro- 
line Islands. His flag flew in Scharnhorst, and this ship with 
hei sister vessel Gneisenau constituted his main strength. 
He had the two light cruisers, Leipzig and Emden, in his 
company, and on July 20, when the situation was becom- 
es 



166 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

ing acute, he ordered Nurnberg, which was at San Fran- 
cisco, and Dresden, which was at Vera Cruz, at the other 
side of the American continent, to join him. Nurnberg 
reached him in a couple of weeks; Dresden not till the end 
of October. By mid-August, then, his force consisted 
of two armoured cruisers, each with a broadside of six 
8-inch and three 6-inch guns, and three light cruisers 
armed only with 4-inch. Of the light cruisers Emden 
and Nurnberg had a speed of between 25 and 26 knots; 
Leipzig of about 23 or 24. The fighting value of the 
armoured cruisers was approximately equal to that of 
Minotaur and Dejence and probably superior to that of 
the Warrior class. The German 8-inch guns fired a pro- 
jectile only slightly lighter than the British 9.2, so that, 
gun for gun, there should have been little to choose 
between them; while from the point of view of the control 
of fire, the broadside of six homogeneous guns could 
probably be used quite as effectively as a mixed armament 
of four 9.2 , s and five 7-5's, and more so than one of four 
9.2's and two 7-5's. To engage such a squadron with the 
certainty of success, therefore, at least three British 
armoured cruisers of the latest type would have been 
required. 

Neither of the British squadrons in eastern waters 
possessed the combination of speed and power that would 
have made them superior to Von Spee's force. Vice-Ad- 
miral Jerram, in the China station, had under his command 
Triumph, Minotaur, Hampshire, Newcastle, and Yarmouth. 
But Triumph was not in commission at the outbreak of 
war, and, though armed with 10-inch guns, she was three 
knots slower than the German cruisers. Sir Richard 
Peirse's command in the East Indies consisted of Szviftsure, 
a sister ship of Triumph; Dartmouth, a cruiser of the same 



THE CAREER OF VON SPEE 167 

class as Newcastle; and Fox, a cruiser of old and slow type. 
Neither squadron, then, could have sought for Von Spee 
with any hope of bringing him to action, if he choose to 
avoid it, or with any certainty of defeating him, if he ac- 
cepted battle. Australia possessed a navy of her own of 
vastly greater force than either of these outpost forces of 
the mother-country. Of ships finished, commissioned, 
and ready for sea, it consisted of Australia, a battle-cruiser 
of the Indefatigable class; two protected cruisers of the 
Dartmouth type, Sydney and Melbourne; and Encounter, 
a sister ship of Challenger, with destroyers and submarines. 
A fast light cruiser, Brisbane, and some destroyers were 
building. In the Japanese Navy the Allies had, of course, 
resources out of all proportion to the enemy's strength. ' 
When war became imminent Admiral von Spee, as we 
have seen, left his base for the Polynesian islands. He 
did this because it was obvious that he could not keep 
Tsing-Tau open in face of the strength that the combined 
Japanese and British forces could bring to bear against 
it, and to have been trapped would have been fatal. The 
same reasons that made him abandon Tsing-Tau forbade 
his trying to keep possession of Rabaud in the Bismarck 
Archipelago. He faced his future, then, without a base — 
just as SufFren did in 178 1. There were several elements 
peculiar to the situation that made this possible. In the 
coast towns of Chile and Peru the Germans had a very 
large number of commercial houses and agents, and there 
were German ships in every South American port. Their 
trade with the islands was considerable and, no doubt 
long before war, it had been arranged that, on receiving 
the right warning, a great deal of shipping should be 
equipped and mobilized to supply the German squadron. 
The widely scattered German outposts afforded also a 



168 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

service hardly less valuable than coal and food. They 
constituted an intelligence organization that was indispen- 
sable. Having no base, and no source of supply other than 
these German houses in South America and the islands, 
it was inevitable that Von Spee should look to the east, 
and not to the west, in any operations that he undertook, 
if those operations were to be extended and made by a 
squadron, and not by detached ships. In discussing, 
then, the strategy which the German Admiralty pursued, 
these facts must not be lost sight of. 

Of warlike policies he had a choice of two. He might 
either keep his ships together and embark on a war of 
squadrons, or he could scatter his ships and devote himself 
to commerce destruction. In the first case, as we have 
seen, he could only look for objectives in the east. In 
the alternative the greatest fields of his operations were 
either north of the Carolines, where the Chinese trade 
could be attacked; or northwest, where the Asiatic and 
Australian trades converge to Colombo; or still farther 
to the west, where the whole eastern trade runs into the 
mouth of the Red Sea. To the eastward there was no 
focal point of trade where great results could have been 
achieved — unless indeed he took his ships round the Horn 
to attack the River Plate trade or, better still, the main 
route that passes Pernambuco. It was an obvious truth 
of the situation that, according as the attack on trade 
promised great results, so would that attack encounter 
the greatest dangers, for it seemed to be a certainty that 
the focal points would be the best protected. The most 
frequented of these, the approaches to the Red Sea, were 
also the furthest from his source of supply, and had he in 
fact resolved upon commerce destruction, his ships would 
have had to maintain themselves, as did Emden, by coal- 



THE CAREER OF VON SPEE 169 

ing and re-victualling out of the prizes that they took. 
The advantage of scattering and going for the trade ruth- 
lessly would have been the virtual certainty of inflicting 
very formidable damage indeed of an economic kind. The 
advantage of keeping his squadron together was the 
chance of some coup that would turn the scale — even if 
only for a time — in his country's favour. The disadvan- 
tages of the first policy were that there was the certainty 
that each ship would ultimately be run down and de- 
stroyed by superior force, and grave risk that one or more 
ships would be paralyzed by want of supplies, before a 
sufficient destruction of trade could justify the sacrifice. 
The weakness of the second was that, as a squadron, his 
ships might accomplish nothing at all. 

I have so far discussed the German Admiral's alterna- 
tives as if they had been debated at the time when war 
became certain. But it can be taken for granted that 
the principles on which he acted were not solely his own, 
but had determined German policy in this matter long 
before. And, in the main, the decisive arguments prob- 
ably arose from the character of his force. 

Writing in 1905, Admiral Sir Reginald Custance exposed 
the whole tissue of fallacies on which the policy of building 
armoured cruisers had been based. The main duties 
of cruising ships are, first, to assist in winning and main- 
taining command of the sea, by acting as scouts and con- 
necting links between the battle squadrons, and, secondly, 
to exercise command, once it has been established by the 
attack on and defence of trade. For the successful dis- 
charge of these functions the essential element is that the 
cruisers should be numerous. So long as their speed is 
equal, or superior, to that of the enemy cruisers, there is 
no reason why their individual strength should be greatly 



170 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

or at all superior. The armoured variety represents, 
roughly speaking, the value of three cruisers of ordinary 
type, and is manned by a crew almost proportionately 
larger. When first designed, it was possible to build these 
large cruisers of a speed superior to that of the smaller 
vessels, and having this monopoly, the French invented 
the type in pursuance of the idea that a sea war that con- 
sisted chiefly of attacks on commerce, promised brighter 
prospects than one which could not succeed unless based 
on battle-fleet supremacy. But this monopoly vanished 
nearly twenty years ago. For cruising purposes proper, 
then, this bastard type, while individually enormously 
more powerful than the light cruiser, was slower and so 
could not cover even one-third of the ground of its equiva- 
lent value in the smaller vessels. Over nine-tenths of the 
field of cruising, then, it represents a loss of between 60 
and 70 per cent, of war efficiency, and this merely from 
its size. 

But because size means cost and because cost has cer- 
tain definite influences on the human appreciation of 
values, it was confidently prophesied that no one in com- 
mand of a number of units of this value could fail to give 
an undue consideration to the importance of conserving 
them. Armoured cruisers, in short, would never be 
treated as cruisers at all, but would be kept in squadrons, 
just as capital ships are kept, partly to ensure a blow of the 
maximum strength, if to strike came within the possibili- 
ties of the situation, much more, however, for the protec- 
tive value of mutual support, for fear of an encounter with 
superior force. This protective tendency would obvi- 
ously have a further and much more disastrous effect upon 
the cruising value of such vessels. It would simply mean 
that, instead of each doing one-third of what three smaller 



THE CAREER OF VON SPEE 171 

cruisers of the same value might have done, they would 
really do no cruising, properly so called, at all; and not 
only this, but would probably monopolize the work of 
two or three small cruisers to act as special scouts of a 
squadron so composed, so diverting these units in turn 
from their proper duties. If any one will take the trouble 
to read the chapter in Barfleur's "Naval Policy" dealing 
with this topic, he will find in Von Spee's conduct an exact 
exemplification of what that accomplished and gallant 
author suggested must happen. Von Spee's policy, in 
other words, was probably settled for him by the logic of 
the situation and the doctrine which prevailed to create it. 
Von Spee actually did, then, what it was fully antici- 
pated he would do. He kept his ships together and travel- 
led slowly eastward, maintaining himself in absolute 
secrecy from the outbreak of war until November 1. 
What were his exact hopes in the policy pursued, and 
what^the consideration that led him to adopt it? His 
hopes of achieving any definite strategic result can only 
have been slender. The composition of his force was so 
well known that he could hardly have supposed it possible 
that he would ever meet a squadron of inferior strength. 
He cannot, then, primarily have contemplated the possi- 
bility of any sort of naval victory. Failing this, he may 
have had various not very precisely defined ideas in his 
mind. There was to begin with the possibility of picking 
up a sufficient number of German reservists off the South 
American coast to have made it possible, not only to attack 
and seize the Falkland Islands, but actually to have oc- 
cupied them by an extemporized military force. This, 
as we know, he did attempt. He might further have con- 
templated crossing the South Atlantic to the Cape, with 
a view to supporting an insurrection of the Boers, if that 



172 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

materialized, or in any event of backing up the German 
colonists, who would be open to attack. Or, having 
struck a blow at the Falkland Islands, he might have sent 
his ships on a final mission in raiding the Atlantic trade. 
So long as his squadron was afloat, there were many possi- 
bilities—and always a certainty that it would force counter 
concentration on his opponents and thereby embarrass 
them in the task of searching for him. 

But one thing was certain. He could not combine 
squadron war with commercial war. Emden he detached 
in August to attack the trade in the Indian Ocean. But 
the only support he could lend her was such immunity 
from pursuit as would result from the concentration he 
forced upon the British forces. It is highly probable 
that, had he sent all his ships on the same mission, he 
would have had at least a month's run before effective 
measures could be taken, if only for the fact, possibly 
unknown to him, that so large a part of the Allied forces 
were being devoted to convoying the Australian troops. 

CORONEL 

But whatever the risks and difficulties of trade war, the 
uncertainties of doing anything at all as a squadron were 
really greater, and the final fate of his ships more certain. 
Whatever his hopes of striking a blow for his country's 
profit or prestige, he could hardly, even in his most ^san- 
guine moments, have anticipated anything so extraordi- 
nary as Admiral Cradock's attack on him on November i. 

The full story of this ill-fated British force is still to be 
told. Nor can what we know be made fully intelligible 
until we have at least the actual words of Admiral Cra- 
dock's instructions. But certain inferences from his 
actions show that whatever those instructions were, his 



THE CAREER OF VON SPEE 173 

own understanding of them is not in doubt at all. Briefly, 
the facts of the case are these: 

Shortly after the outbreak of war Admiral Cradock 
transferred his flag from Suffolk to Good Hope and made 
his way round the Horn, taking Monmouth, Glasgow, and 
the liner Otranto with him. The old battleship, Canopus, 
was despatched from home to join his flag, and actually 
caught him up some time before the action. The Canopus 
needed time either for refitting, to coal, or to re-provision, 
and the Admiral, instead of waiting for her, pursued his 
way north with his original three ships. 

Before Canopus joined the flag the last letters written 
by the officers and men of the squadron were posted, and 
in one of these a member of his staff stated that the general 
feeling was that the ships were inadequate to the task set 
before them, and so far, at least, as their mission was con- 
cerned, the naval supremacy of Great Britain was not 
being employed to any useful purpose. 

Certain truths with regard to the force that Cradock 
took north, and of the force that he attacked, should be 
borne in mind. Good Hope, Monmouth, and Glasgow were 
as a squadron, markedly faster than Von Spee's squadron. 
Whether the Otranto was capable of more than 22 or 23 
knots I do not know; but the three warships certainly had 
the heels of the Germans. It is, then, obvious that if 
Admiral Cradock's staff regarded themselves and their 
ships as inadequate or in danger, it cannot have been be- 
cause, had the enemy attacked them, they would have 
been unable to escape. It is next equally obvious that 
had the Admiral kept Canopus with him, while the pace 
of the squadron would have been brought down from 23 
knots to 15, its fighting value, as measured by broadside 
power, would have been very much greater than Von 



i 7 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Spee's. That Von Spee at least thought so is clear from 
his published letters. 

Without Canopus, then, Cradock would have been safe 
if he had run away. With Canopies he would have been 
reasonably safe if he had awaited the enemy's attack. 
The significance of the letter which I have alluded to is 
that it was written by a man to whom neither of these 
contingencies seemed to be open. The superiority in 
speed which would always have made it possible for Cra- 
dock to evade Von Spee was also the one quality of his 
ships that gave him capacity to attack the Germans if 
they showed any signs of avoiding action. No doubt, 
if the Germans would have awaited action by a squadron 
which included the Canopus Admiral Cradock's chances 
might have been brilliant. But if he started out to look 
for Von Spee with a 15-knot squadron, his chances for 
acting swiftly on any information that came his way 
would have been greatly reduced; and to have limited his 
advance to 15 knots would have been handing over the 
initiative in the matter entirely to the enemy. 

Bearing these elements in mind and noting first that 
the British Admiral deliberately left Canopus behind; 
next, that at two o'clock in the afternoon of November 1, 
when the presence of an enemy was suspected to the north, 
he at once ordered all ships to close on Good Hope, and 
continued when the squadron was formed, to advance 
against the enemy, and that then, when he saw him, in 
spite of the bad weather and bad light, at once announced 
that he intended to attack him, the inference is irresistible 
that he thought it his duty to find and attack the enemy, 
and that he refused to interpret the sending of Canopus to 
mean that he could judge for himself whether or not he was 
in sufficient force to attack. He acted, that is to say, as 



THE CAREER OF VON SPEE 175 

no man would act unless he believed his mission to be of a 
peremptory and quite unmistakable kind. 

So much, I think, is clear from the few known facts of 
the case. Whether Admiral Cradock was right in so in- 
terpreting his orders is, of course, another matter. Of 
that no one can judge until the orders themselves are 
published, and then only those who are familiar with the 
precise meaning of the phrases employed. Of the instruc- 
tions themselves, then, I express no opinion. I am only 
concerned with the light that Admiral Cradock's actions 
throw on his own interpretation of them. 

Two official descriptions of the action have been pub- 
lished, Captain Luce's, and the Graf von Spee's despatches. 
There are further the private letters of the German 
Admiral, of his son Otto, and that of a lieutenant of 
the Glasgow. All of these are in substantial agreement 
in their statement of the facts — an unusual thing, to be 
explained perhaps quite simply. The British officers 
naturally told the truth about the fate of the squadron; 
and the German success was so complete that there was 
no reason for the Government to exaggerate or garble the 
straightforward and not ungenerous statements of the 
German sailors. It is to Von Spee's credit that he de- 
clined any public rejoicings by the German colony at 
Valparaiso, when he visited that port directly after the 
action to secure the internment of Good Hope, of whose 
fate he was uncertain. 

The story of the fight is simple enough. Admiral Cra- 
dock formed his ships in line with Good Hope leading, then 
Monmouth, then Glasgow. Otranto he ordered away as 
soon as battle became imminent, and Glasgow shortly 
afterwards. Von Spee criticizes the British Admiral for 
not attacking the two armoured cruisers during the half 



176 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

hour that elapsed between the formation of the Fleet 
while Number g and Dresden were coming up full speed to 
join the line. At 6 130 the two lines were on nearly parallel 
and southerly courses at a distance of about 14,700 yards. 
Twenty minutes later Von Spee had closed the range about 
1,200 yards, and he then altered course a point towards 
the enemy, and this, in a quarter of an hour, brought the 
range to about 11,000 yards. He then opened fire and, 
five minutes later, got his first hit with a salvo on Good 
Hope. He had the best of the light, and it was obvious 
to him that the British gunnery suffered more from the 
heavy seas than did his own. As in neither squadron 
could any but the upper-deck guns be used, the Germans 
had an overwhelmingly superior armament in action — 
their twelve 8-inch guns having nothing opposed to them 
except the two 9:2 of Good Hope and the upper-deck 6-inch 
guns of Good Hope and Monmouth. Inferior metal and the 
more difficult conditions soon told their tale. In the 
quarter of an hour during which the German Admiral 
closed the range from 11,000 yards to less than 7,000, he 
says "both the British cruisers were practically covered 
by the German fire, whereas Schamhorst was hit only 
twice, and Gneisenau only four times." The German 
Admiral now sheered off", and it looks as if Admiral Cra- 
dock had then begun to close. An English account sup- 
poses that Good Hope was drifting and not under control. 
Anyhow, the range, in spite of the German change of 
course, was reduced by another 1,200 yards, and the Ger- 
mans thought that the British Admiral contemplated a 
torpedo attack. About fifty minutes after the action 
commenced there was an enormous explosion in Good Hope 
which had been on fire some time. The people in Glasgow 
for a time thought it was the German flagship that had 



THE CAREER OF VON SPEE 177 

gone, so short had the range become. Neither of our 
armoured cruisers fired after this, and the Germans seem 
to have lost sight of Good Hope altogether, in spite of her 
proximity. Monmouth, listing badly and on fire, turned 
to keep bows on to the sea, and Von Spee sent his light 
cruisers in pursuit of her. She kept her flag flying to the 
last and was sunk, an hour and a half after Good Hope 
blew up, by a short range attack by Nilrnberg, 

Both ships could, of course, quite honourably have 
saved themselves once their case had become hopeless, 
had their officers chosen to surrender. But it was with 
no thought of surrendering that they had engaged, and 
the stoic heroism of their end is the noblest legacy they 
could have left to their fellow countrymen. Glasgow 
kept with Monmouth as long as she could ; but her orders 
from the Admiral had been explicit, and it was obvious 
that she could not single-handed engage the undamaged 
German squadron, nor be of the slightest service to Mon- 
mouth had she attempted to do so. Captain Luce, quite 
rightly therefore, retreated from the scene. 

A private letter, written a day after the action by the 
German Admiral, throws an interesting light on the 
situation. After recounting the unimportant character 
of the damage suffered by his ships, he adds, "I do not 
know what adverse circumstances deprived the enemy 
of every measure of success. ... If Good Hope" he wrote 
" escaped she must, in my opinion, make for a Chilean 
port on account of her damages. To make sure, of this I 
intend going to Valparaiso to-morrow with Gneisenau 
and Nurnberg, and to see whether Good Hope could not 
be disarmed by the Chileans. If so, I shall be relieved 
of two powerful opponents. Good Hope, though bigger 
than Scharnhorsty was not so well armed. She mounted 



178 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

heavy guns, but only two, while Monmouth succumbed 
to Scharnhorst's as she hadjonly 6-inch guns. The English 
have another ship like Monmouth hereabouts and, in 
addition, as it seems, a battleship of the Queen class 
carrying 12-inch guns. Against the latter we can hardly 
do anything. Had they kept their force together, we 
should probably have got the worst of it. You can 
hardly imagine the joy which reigned among us. We 
have at least contributed something to the glory of our 
arms, although it may not mean much on the whole and 
in view of the enormous number of English ships." 

Viewing this action apart from the circumstances that 
led up to it and the magnificent spirit and self-sacrifice 
displayed, its technical and historical interest lies chiefly 
in the fact that it is the only instance in the war in which 
an inferior force has sought action with one incomparably 
stronger. The weaker, not only sought battle, but 
apparently executed no defensive manoeuvres of any kind 
whatever. We shall find, for instance, no parallel in 
Coronel to the tactics of Von Spee at the Falkland Islands, 
or to those of Admiral Scheer at Jutland. And it is 
perhaps remarkable that the British Admiral, once having 
determined on action which he must have known would 
be desperate, did not either at once attempt to close the 
enemy at full speed, so as to give his very inferior artillery 
and his torpedoes a chance of inflicting serious damage 
on the enemy while daylight lasted, or delay closing 
until bad light would make long-range gunnery impossible, 
in a melee at point blank. Anything might have happened, 
and it was to the weaker side's interest to leave as much 
as possible to chance. 

It is hardly conceivable that the total result of the 
action could have been different so far as the British 



THE CAREER OF VON SPEE 179 

squadron is concerned. But it is permissible to speculate 
as to whether the Germans might not have suffered more, 
had either of the above plans been followed. The reason- 
ing which dictated Admiral Cradock's tactics can, of 
course, never be known. 

A matter of considerable technical interest is, that 
though two armoured cruisers kept firing for a consider- 
able period, it is quite clear from Von Spee's despatch 
that their fire was completely ineffective. Everyone 
has agreed in explaining this largely by the extreme 
difficulty of gunnery conditions, but it is surely highly 
probable that the chief cause is to be found in the fire 
of the German ships having, so far as the power of offence 
is concerned, put Good Hope and Mommouth out of action 
within very few minutes of action beginning. All accounts 
agree in the Scharnhorst's salvo having found Good Hope 
within five minutes, and it is not likely that Monmouth 
fared any better at the hands of Gneisenau. What seems 
to me remarkable is the length of time the ships kept 
afloat after being militarily useless. The explosion in 
Good Hope took place after she was in action fifty minutes, 
and it is not known when she sank. The Monmouth 
survived the opening salvoes by two hours and twenty 
minutes, and to the last seemed to have her engines in 
perfect working order. It is impossible, I think, to resist 
the inference, that all the German hitting, except the 
shell that caused the explosion in Good Hope, was done in 
the first few minutes of action, while the light was at its 
best, though the range was at its longest. 



CHAPTER XII 
Battle of the Falkland Islands (i) 

THE CAREER OF VON SPEE (il) 

The Battle of the Falkland Islands was fought on De- 
cember 8th by a squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir F. 
Doveton Sturdee, K.C.B., C.V.O., C.M.G., against the 
German China Squadron — less Emden, but strengthened 
by the addition of the cruiser Dresden. Admiral Sturdee's 
despatch was not published until about three months 
after the action, but in the meantime several accounts 
appeared in various newspapers, and since the despatch 
was published others have been printed in different 
magazines. Of no other action in the war have we such 
various or full information as about this. It will perhaps 
be a convenient way of dealing with this extremely in- 
structive and important engagement to reproduce the 
Vice-Admiral's despatch textually, and to supplement it 
by explanatory notes, and incorporate in these what is 
most material of the additional information which is 
available. 

The despatch begins with the tabulation of the sections 
into which the despatch is divided: ' 

A. Preliminary Movements. 

B. Action with the Armoured Cruisers. 

C. Action with the Light Cruisers. 

D. Action with the Enemy's Transports. 

"The squadron, consisting of H.M. ships Invincible, 
flying my flag, Flag Captain Percy T. H. Beamish; 

180 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 181 

Inflexible, Captain Richard F. Phillimore; Carnarvon 
flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Archibald P. Stoddart, 
Flag Captain Harry L. d'E. Skipwith; Cornwall, Cap- 
tain Walter M. Ellerton; Kent, Captain John D. Allen; 
Glasgow, Captain John Luce; Bristol, Captain Basil H. 
Fanshawe; and Macedonia, Captain Bertram S. Evans — 
arrived at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, at 10:30 A.M. 
on Monday, the 7th December, 1914. Coaling was com- 
menced at once, in order that the ships should be ready 
to resume the search for the enemy's squadron the next 
evening, the 8th December." 

Xhe account previously given of the Graf von Spee's 
movements leading up to and subsequent to the action 
off Coronel, will have made the general strategic position 
in the Eastern Pacific and Southern Atlantic more or less 
plain. Of his ships, however, this should be added. The 
clear light and prevalence of smooth water on the China 
Station has always proved an incentive to good gunnery, 
and indeed the performances of the Terrible, when Vice- 
Admiral Sir Percy Scott commanded her as captain, may 
be regarded as the starting point of all modern gunnery 
skill. It is not surprising, therefore, that both of Von 
Spee's ships should have stood, as they in fact did, at the 
head of the German Fleet in order of gunnery merit. And 
it was clear from their performances that their skill was 
not merely limited to good gun-laying. Both at Coronel 
and at Falkland Islands they gave conclusive evidence 
of being perfect masters of such fire control as they 
possessed, and on the first occasion shot superbly in 
very rough weather. They therefore constituted an 
extremely formidable combination. The German 8.2 
shell of the latest type — with which these ships were 
armed — fired a projectile very nearly as heavy as did 



i82 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

the British 9.2*s — the actual weights are 320 pounds 
and 380. The percentage is roughly 8.4 to 10. These 
two ships had as scouts and auxiliaries the Leipzig, 
Number g, and Dresden, cruisers of similar design; but 
Dresden was considerably faster than either of her 
consorts. 

After the destruction of the Good Hope and Monmouth, 
Von Spee cruised for a short time in the Eastern Pacific, 
and then made his way in leisurely fashion round the Horn 
with the intention of crossing to South Africa. In a fatal 
moment he decided to attack the British Colony at Falk- 
land Islands first, and it was this that brought him within 
reach of Admiral Sturdee's guns. It is clear enough from 
his conduct — let alone admissions made by prisoners 
afterwards — that he had no idea whatever of the strength 
of the force that had been sent out to attack him. He 
fully expected to find Canopus at Port Stanley, and he 
thought it possible that Carnarvon and Glasgow might be 
there also. And these ships he was quite prepared to 
engage. It was quite a different thing, however, to take 
on two battle-cruisers that under any bearing could bring 
between them a dozen 12-inch guns into action and, on 
certain bearings, four more. As will be seen from the 
despatch, the moment he realized the strength against 
him, he adopted what seemed the only possible course, 
namely flight. 

A. PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS 

"At 8 a.m. on Tuesday, the 8th December, a signal was 
received from the signal station on shore: — 

A four-funnel and two-funnel man-of-war in sight 
from Sapper Hill, steering northwards.' 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 183 

"At this time, the positions of the various ships of 
the squadron were as follows: — 

"Macedonia: At anchor as look-out ship. 
"Kent (guardship): At anchor in Port William. 
"Invincible and Inflexible: In Port William. 
"Carnarvon: In Port William. 
"Cornwall: In Port William. 
"Glasgow: In Port Stanley. 
"Bristol: In Port Stanley. 
"The Kent was at once ordered to weigh, and a general 
signal was made to raise steam for full speed. 

"At 8:20 a.m. the signal station reported another 
column of smoke in sight to the southward, and at 8 145 
a.m. the Kent passed down the harbour and took up a 
station at the entrance. 

"The Canopus, Captain Heathcoat S. Grant, reported 
at 8:47 a.m. that the first two ships were eight miles off, 
and that the smoke reported at 8:20 a.m. appeared to be 
the smoke of two ships about twenty miles off. 

"At 8:50 a.m. the signal station reported a further 
column of smoke in sight to the southward. 

"The Macedonia was ordered to weigh anchor on the 
inner side of the other ships, and await orders." 

Here the signal, it will be observed, says "a four-funnel 
and two-funnel man of war." The ships were probably 
end on when they were seen, and in the Nurnberg there 
was a considerable gap between the after-funnel and the 
two forward funnels. Seen from a point a little off the 
direct keel line, she would seem therefore to have two 
funnels only. 

Port William and Port Stanley are two inlets with a 
tongue of land between them, and opposite this tongue 
of land is the channel to the sea. Port Stanley is in the 



i8 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

more southerly division of the harbour, which is also the 
larger of the two. Canopus was anchored to the eastward 
of the town of Port Stanley, so that her guns could fire 
over the low-lying land between her and the sea. The 
land rises to the north as it creeps round towards the 
mouth of the harbour, and on this higher land there was 
an observation station where arrangements had been made 
by which the fire of Canopus could be directed out to sea 
at any squadron that threatened to attack. The reader 
is therefore to imagine the Macedonia lying in the outside 
mouth of the harbour; Kent anchored in the channel half 
way between Macedonia and where the harbour divides 
Port Stanley to the south and Port William to the north; 
with Inflexible, Invincible, and Carnarvon anchored in 
line in Port William; the Bristol and Glasgow in the south- 
ern bay, with Port Stanley behind them to the westward, 
and Canopus behind them to the east. 

The Vice-Admiral wasted no time. As a fact, all his 
ships were then coaling. And the officers not engaged 
in this were making plans for a day's shooting over the 
rough moors in the neighbourhood of the town — where 
hares and partridges were to be found — and were many 
of them in mufti, and most of them at breakfast when the 
startling and welcome news of the advent of the enemy 
came to them. Everything, of course, gave way to the 
necessity of getting out of harbour with the utmost speed. 
Colliers were cast off. The furnaces were fed, and all 
hands were started to clean first the ships and then them- 
selves. At eight the first ships seemed to be probably 
twenty miles off. Twenty minutes later, a further 
detachment came into sight; half an hour later than that, 
the last of the Germans were seen upon the horizon. 

Round about 9 o'clock Kent was outside the harbour, 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 185 

while Gneisenau and Nurnberg were approaching at about 
twenty knots. 

3. "At 9:20 a.m. the two leading ships of the enemy 
{Gneisenau and Nurnberg), with guns trained on the wire- 
less station, came within range of the Canopus, who opened 
fire at them across the low land at a range of 1 1,000 yards. 
The enemy at once hoisted their colours and turned away. 
At this time the masts and smoke of the enemy were visible 
from the upper bridge of the Invincible at a range of 
approximately 17,000 yards across the low land to the 
south of Port William. 

"A few minutes later the two cruisers altered course 
to port, as though to close the Kent at the entrance to the 
harbour, but about this time it seems that the Invincible and 
Inflexible were seen over the land, as the enemy at once 
altered course and increased speed to join their consorts. 

"The Glasgow weighed and proceeded at 9:40 a.m. 
with orders to join the Kent and observe the enemy's 
movements." 

The Germans, as we have seen, expected possibly to 
find Canopus at the Falkland Islands, but not that she 
would be concealed from their fire behind the low-lying 
ground. Their astonishment then to find themselves 
under the fire of 12-inch guns at twenty minutes past 
nine was considerable. They therefore turned, not with 
the intention of running away but clearly to throw out 
the fire control that was directing the big guns at them, 
for it must have been about this time that they saw the 
county cruiser Kent in the offing, and their first thought 
was to go in and finish her off. But a very few moments 
after there opened up over the line of vision the tripod 
masts of the two battle-cruisers, and the Gneisenau and 
Nurnberg, that had been coming due north for the attack, 



186 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

now turned round to the east, and went full speed to join 
their approaching consorts, who were cutting off the 
corner made by the first two ships. 

Two quite important questions arise at this point. Was 
it good policy on the part of Admiral Sturdee to allow 
Canopus to open fire and so drive the Germans away? 
If, indeed, it was Canopus that drove them off. He knew, 
of course, that it would take him at least half an hour to 
forty minutes before all his squadron could be clear of the 
harbour, and ready to begin the chase. Would it have 
been wiser if he had allowed the Germans to come right 
up and so to have made sure of having them within easy 
range when he did come out ? The answer to this criti- 
cism is obvious. Gneisenau was a great deal more than a 
match for Kent, and no British ship could have got out 
to her assistance in time to prevent her destruction if 
Gneisenau had been allowed to close. The speed of Ad- 
miral Sturdee's battle-cruisers was such — he had certainly 
a five, if not a six knot advantage over the armoured 
cruisers — that he knew he had it well within his power 
with the whole day before him, to give the Germans forty 
minutes' start, and catch them and finish them off before 
evening. And it was his business to do this, if he could, 
with the smallest possible loss of life and the least possible 
damage to his ships. That is the first point. But next, 
it was quite within the possibilities of the case that Can- 
opus's guns would make a hit either on Gneisenau or Nurn- 
berg. Indeed, so close did the fourth and fifth rounds go 
that it was thought on shore that there had been a hit; 
but this was afterwards proved to be a mistake. There 
was a good chance then of laming one of them and 
so making a quick capture certain. Finally, it was not alto- 
gether the fire of Canopus but the sight of the battle- 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 187 

cruisers' masts that decided Von Spee, or rather the Cap- 
tain of Gneisenau, to retreat. 

It is more pertinent to ask whether it would not have 
been better policy on the part of the Germans to have 
got inside the range of Canopus — for obviously if she had 
fired over the hills she would not be able to use her guns 
at short range — and then bring the British squadron 
under an accurate bombardment just when they were 
coming out of harbour and unable to use their armament 
to effect. The same considerations that weighed with 
Admiral Sturdee in deciding to allow Canopus to open 
fire with the possible result of driving them off*, should 
have weighed with the German captain and made him 
realize that once the battle-cruisers were out of harbour, 
there was no possible escape either for his ship or for the 
flagship. And it is undoubtedly certain that whether 
they could have succeeded in sinking and destroying any 
British ships before being destroyed themselves, they 
must have done vastly greater damage than they were, 
in fact, able to inflict in an action which, as we shall see, 
the British Admiral was able to fight on his own conditions 
from first to last. The main features of the final issue — 
that is, the destruction of the two armoured cruisers — 
could certainly not have been prevented, but had they 
closed the range, and fought the British ships as they 
came out, the complete escape of the light cruisers could 
have been assured, and it is certain that they could have 
done very great damage before being destroyed themselves. 

4. "At 9:45 a.m. the squadron — less the Bristol — 
weighed, and proceeded out of harbour in the following 
order: Carnarvon, Inflexible, Invincible, and Cornwall 
On passing Cape Pembroke Light, the five ships of the 
enemy appeared clearly in sight to the southeast, hull 



188 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

down. The visibility was at its maximum, the sea was 
calm, with a bright sun, a clear sky, and a light breeze 
from the northwest." 

At 9:45, when the squadron got clear of the harbour 
and was working up to full speed, the Germans, whose 
main squadron was about 8| sea miles off at 9:30, while 
Gneisenau and Nurnberg were three miles closer in, were 
probably about twelve or thirteen miles off. There was 
then a gap of five or six miles to be made up before action 
range could be reached, and to make this good in three 
hours the British squadron would have to produce a speed 
greater by some two knots. 

"At 10:20 a.m. the signal for a general chase was made. 
The battle-cruisers quickly passed ahead of the Carnarvon 
and overtook the Kent. The Glasgow was ordered to 
keep two miles from the Invincible, and the Inflexible was 
stationed on the starboard quarter of the flagship. Speed 
was eased to twenty knots at 11:15 a.m. to enable the 
other cruisers to get into station. At this time the ene- 
my's funnels and bridges showed just above the horizon." 

It will be observed that the British Admiral was carry- 
ing on his chase on a wide front and at full speed — prob- 
ably twenty-four knots. Only Glasgow, Kent, and the 
two battle-cruisers could maintain this, which meant that 
Carnarvon and Cornwall were falling very much behind. 
The Admiral therefore, after an hour, dropped his speed 
to twenty knots to enable his two cruisers to catch up. 
Why did he do this ? 

P In the first place, his burst at full speed had probably 
shown him that instead of having an advantage of only 
two knots in speed over his enemy, he could beat him by 
at least five knots when he chose. And he reasoned that 
if he drove at the five German ships with only four of his 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 189 

own, it was possible for the German ships to scatter and 
so for one or more of them to escape. It was of the essence 
of his tactics that the enemy should keep his fleet together 
as long as possible, and it was a vital matter that when the 
dispersion took place the pursuit of the light cruisers 
should be undertaken by his own light cruisers with the 
best possible prospects of bringing all of them to action. 
As we shall see by the next paragraph, this measure did 
not attain its desired end. 

"The enemy were still maintaining their distance, and 
I decided at 12:20 p.m. to attack with the two battle- 
cruisers and the Glasgow. 

"At 12:47 p.m. the signal to 'Open fire and engage the 
enemy' was made. 

"The Inflexible opened lire at 12:55 P - M - from her fore 
turret at the right-hand ship of the enemy, a light cruiser; 
a few minutes later the Invincible opened fire at the same 
ship. 

"The deliberate fire from a range of 16,500 to 15,000 
yards at the right-hand light cruiser, who was dropping 
astern, became too threatening, and when a shell fell close 
alongside her at 1 :20 she (the Leipzig) turned away, with 
the Nurnberg and Dresden, to the southwest. These light 
cruisers were at once followed by the Kent, Glasgow, and 
Cornwall, in accordance with my instructions. 

"The action finally developed into three separate en- 
counters besides the subsidiary one dealing with the 
threatened landing." 

It is plain from this that when the speed was limited 
by that of its slowest ship, that is, the Carnarvon, the 
squadron was unable to gain on the Germans at all. The 
time, therefore, had come to force the enemy to a decision, 
and full speed was once more ordered. The British squad- 



190 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

ron from now until the next decisive move was taken, 
must be pictured in this way — the two battle-cruisers 
and Glasgow racing along at twenty-six or twenty-seven 
knots; Cornwall and Kent following along at their best 
speed — probably a knot and a half or two knots less — and 
Carnarvon bringing up the rear. She must soon have 
been left considerably behind. For an hour then the two 
squadrons had probably been keeping about twenty-one 
knots at a distance of about 19,000 yards. Half an hour's 
chase at twenty-five knots brought the range to 17,000 and 
twenty-five minutes later, to something less than 15,000. 

The German squadron was now under fire and Von Spee 
made the signal, "I intend to fight the battle-cruisers as 
long as I can, the light cruisers are to scatter and to escape 
if possible." The reader will of course realize that up 
to this moment Leipzig, Niirnberg, and Dresden had been 
limiting their speed by the speed of Scharnhorst. This 
was undoubtedly Von Spee's second mistake, if we assume 
he was wrong in not attacking the British squadron as it 
issued from the harbour. By keeping his light cruisers 
with him until the British were within ten miles of him, 
he brought their chance of escape to a very low ebb indeed. 
It is clear that Admiral Sturdee's drop in speed at 11:20 
completely deceived him. He probably thought that 
none of the British cruisers could exceed the speed the 
Vice-Admiral then ordered. 

We now have to treat of the rest of the day's work as 
three separate actions, though it is really more correct to 
call it four, because the actions between Kent and Num- 
ber g, Cornwall and Glasgow with Leipzig had, after the 
first phase, no influence one upon the other. We will deal 
first, as the Vice-Admiral does, with the action with the 
armoured cruisers. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Battle of the Falkland Islands (II) 

B. ACTION WITH THE ARMOURED CRUISERS 

"The fire of the battle-cruisers was directed on the Scharn- 
horst and Gneisenau. The effect of this was quickly seen, 
when at 1 125 p.m, with the Scharnhorst leading, they 
turned about seven points to port in succession into line 
ahead and opened fire at 1 130 p.m. Shortly afterwards 
speed was eased to twenty-four knots, and the battle- 
cruisers were ordered to turn together, bringing them into 
line ahead, with the Invincible leading. 

"The range was about 13,500 yards at the final turn, 
and increased until at 2 p.m. it had reached 16,450 yards." 

The moment Von Spee found himself under the effective 
fire of the battle-cruisers, he took the only course open to 
him. To delay the finish by sheer flight would do no good. 
It was his duty to inflict some reciprocal injury on his 
opponent. He was under the fire of at least eight if not 
twelve 12-inch guns, and he only had six 8-inch guns bear- 
ing on Admiral Sturdeei To do anything at all effective 
he had to turn broadside on. He therefore turned seven- 
eighths of a right angle to port, that is, to the left — his 
course now being almost at right angles to Admiral Stur- 
dee's — and six minutes afterwards, when both his ships 
were on a steady course, he opened fire. Three minutes 
after he began his turn, and therefore three minutes before 
he opened fire, Admiral Sturdee turned his ships to port 
also, but his turn was not quite so big as the enemy's, and 

191 



192 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

for about twelve minutes the range was steadily closing. 
The effect of these changes of course was to bring the 
battle-cruisers to within 11,000 or 12,000 yards of Scharn- 
horst and Gneisenau. The Germans took full advantage 
of this opportunity, and before they had been firing five 
minutes they had salvo after salvo straddling the battle- 
cruisers. 

As we have seen, both in the stories of the Koenigsberg 
and of the Emden, there has been no feature of any gun- 
nery action more regularly reproduced than the rapidity 
with which the Germans find the range at the beginning 
of an action, or the regularity with which the projectiles 
of every broadside fall together. It was strikingly exem- 
plified in the present instance, so much so indeed that 
Admiral Sturdee thought it wise to make a further turn 
to port, thus increasing the range, and as he says in this 
despatch, by the time his total turn was completed, he 
brought the range out again to about 13,500 yards. At 
this distance the 12-inch guns would have a marked ad- 
vantage over the 8.2's. But for all that the German fire 
continued surprisingly accurate, and many hits were 
made on our ships. The British Admiral held to his new 
course and the German ships theirs. This involved the 
lengthening of the range. But Von Spee doubtless pre- 
ferred this to the confusion of a changing rate. He held 
on then till he could reach the British ships no longer. 
The consequence was that in twenty minutes the range 
had increased by a further 2,500 yards, which was far 
beyond the capacity of 8.2's, and a range at which the 
shooting of even the 12-inch guns might be irregular. 
Accordingly at about 2 o'clock the British squadron began 
a gradual turn towards the enemy, which in about seven 
minutes' time brought them on a course at right angles 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 193 

to their previous course, and therefore a little less than 
right angles to the course which the Germans were steering. 

"The enemy then (2:10 p.m.) turned away about ten 
points to starboard and a second chase ensued, until, at 
2:45 p.m., the battle-cruisers again opened fire; this caused 
the enemy, at 2:53 p.m., to turn into line ahead to port 
and open fire at 2:55 p.m. 

"The Schamhorst caught fire forward, but not seriously, 
and her fire slackened perceptibly; the Gneisenau was 
badly hit by the Inflexible." 

In the seven minutes of the beginning of Admiral 
Sturdee's turn he reduced the range by considerably over 
1,000 yards, and Von Spee perceiving the change of course 
of the British ships, turned about half a right angle to 
starboard, that is to the right, as if undecided whether 
to go right across the bows, and then a few minutes after- 
wards turned much more than a right angle to the right 
again. This brought the British squadron dead astern 
of him and showed that his only anxiety at this moment 
was to escape our fire as long as possible. It appears from 
various accounts that firing had ceased on both sides for 
some little time before Admiral Sturdee began his turn at 
2 o'clock, and Von Spee wished to make the lull in the 
fighting as long as possible. There were doubtless many 
wounded to carry off, damages to be made good, and so 
forth. The whole of the first phase of the gunnery engage- 
ment, then, beginning just after half-past one on the Ger- 
man side, may be supposed to have ended round about 
ten minutes to two. 

At ten minutes past two the enemy began his new flight, 
necessitating a reproduction by the British squadron of 
their tactics of two hours before. It was a chase, not on 
the direct track of the Germans, but on a course parallel 



i 9 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

to them and coming round on their port or left-hand side. 
Von Spee's retreat had naturally increased the range, 
carried it out indeed considerably beyond 16,000 yards, 
but by a quarter to three it had been reduced once more 
to 15,000 yards, and when the British ships reopened fire, 
after less than ten minutes of it the enemy turned to bring 
his broadside into action, just as he had done at 1 125. 

"At 3 .*30 p.m. the Scharnhorst led round about ten points 
to starboard; just previously her fire had slackened per- 
ceptibly, and one shell had shot away her third funnel; 
some guns were not firing, and it would appear that the 
turn was dictated by a desire to bring her starboard guns 
into action. The effect of the fire on the Scharnhorst 
became more and more apparent in consequence of smoke 
from fires, and also escaping steam; at times a shell would 
cause a large hole to appear in her side, through which 
could be seen a dull red glow of flame. At 4:4 p.m. the 
Scharnhorst, whose flag remained flying to the last, suddenly 
listed heavily to port, and within a minute it became clear 
that she was a doomed ship; for the list increased very 
rapidly until she lay on her beam ends, and at 4:17 p.m. 
she disappeared." 

There was this difference between the enemy's man- 
oeuvres on this occasion and that of an hour and a half 
before. At 1 125 he simply turned sufficiently to bring his 
broadside to bear. This time he turned not less but much 
more than a right angle, and Admiral Sturdee was con- 
siderably behind him when he opened fire at a quarter 
to three. Had the British squadron not turned shortly 
afterwards, the Germans could have closed the range to 
collision point. As a matter of fact, immediately after 
the Germans turned, Admiral Sturdee turned too, but not 
so large an angle, and the consequence was that at 3 o'clock 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 195 

the range had been reduced to 12,000 yards, and at one 
time it had shortened down to about 9,000. It was appar- 
ently Von Spee's intention at this stage to shorten the range 
to an extent that would give his guns the opportunity of 
doing some real damage to our ships. This is of course 
the proper policy to adopt if a squadron has inferior gun- 
power and is unable to escape by flight. 

But it will be observed that Von Spee did not persist in 
this manoeuvre, and it is obvious that he adopted it too 
late. He missed his first opportunity of inflicting serious 
and possibly decisive injury, when he failed to engage the 
British ships as they were coming out of harbour. He 
missed the second when, on Admiral Sturdee turning 
away from him at 1 145, he held on his course and allowed 
the range to be increased. He missed it again when at 
2:10, instead of holding on his course and going across 
Admiral Sturdee's bows, he began his second and necessar- 
ily futile flight. When the fourth chance came it was 
probably too late. Both ships had been hit and Scharn- 
horst seriously. But for about twenty minutes the Ger- 
man Admiral did now close the range and come in almost 
direct pursuit of the British. So much so that shortly 
after a quarter past three Admiral Sturdee turned away 
from him, and describing a kind of circle with his ships 
from left to right, brought his squadron round so as to be 
directly behind the German ships. He had two reasons 
for making this turn. His course was straight up wind, 
so that gunnery conditions were bad, and the turn brought 
him to the most favourable possible position for concen- 
trating fire upon the enemy, while they had only a mini- 
mum number of guns bearing. This position Von Spee 
found intolerable. Both his ships were suffering, and one 
of the Scharnhorsfs funnels was carried away. It must 



196 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

have been evident to him that the end was not far off when 
he turned at half past three. Never since the first twenty 
minutes had the enemy's fire been really good, and now 
the thing was assuming the dimensions of a military 
execution. The second phase of gunfire between a quar- 
ter to three and half past had been decisive as far as the 
Scharnhorst was concerned. 

A curious incident in this interval should be noted. 
Just as the firing began in this second phase, a full-rigged 
sailing ship was observed about four miles off to the south- 
east from the leading British ship. She is not identified in 
any of the reports of the action that I have seen, nor has any 
account appeared that I know of, of what those on board 
saw. But it must have been an astonishing experience for 
a peaceful trading sailing vessel, beating down quietly 
towards the Horn, to find herself suddenly in the middle of 
so grim a business as this. Those on board saw a thing at 
that time unprecedented in the history of the world. A sea 
battle in which ships as fast as the swiftest Atlantic liners 
were using an armament twice as powerful as that carried 
by any battleship that had ever been used in war before. 

The last moments of Scharnhorst were curiously drama- 
tic. Till now she had led Gneisenau throughout the fight. 
Just before she sank she turned a half circle past Gneisenau 
in the reverse direction, and before anybody in the British 
ships could guess whether this was an intentional man- 
oeuvre or purely involuntary, she turned over on her side, 
her bows plunged downwards, and after standing upright 
for a second or two with her screws whirring high in the 
air, vanished from sight. It is probable that coincident 
with one shot inflicting such injuries that she was flooded, 
another had smashed up her steering gear, and jammed 
her helm hard a-port. 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 197 

"The Gneisenau passed on the far side of her late flag- 
ship, and continued a determined but ineffectual effort 
to fight the two battle cruisers. 

"At 5:8 p.m. the forward funnel was knocked over and 
remained resting against the second funnel. She was 
evidently in serious straits, and her fire slackened very 
much. 

"At 5:15 p.m. one of the Gneisenau s shells struck the 
Invincible; this was her last effective effort. 

"At 5 130 p.m. she turned towards the flagship with a 
heavy list to starboard, and appeared stopped, with steam 
pouring from her escape pipes, and smoke from shell and 
fires rising everywhere. About this time I ordered the 
signal 'Cease fire,' but before it was hoisted the Gneisenau 
opened fire again, and continued to fire from time to time 
with a single gun. 

" At 5 140 p.m. the three ships closed in on the Gneisenau^ 
and, at this time, the flag flying at her fore truck was ap- 
parently hauled down, but the flag at the peak continued 
flying. 

"At 5:50 p.m. 'Cease fire' was made. 

"At 6 p.m. the Gneisenau heeled over very suddenly, 
showing the men gathered on her decks and then walking 
on her side as she lay for a minute on her beam ends before 
sinking/' 

'The Gneisenau, at 4:17, still had all her guns in action, 
and seemed indeed to have suffered very little. Had the 
fire of both battle-cruisers hitherto been concentrated 
chiefly on the flagship ? If so, the effect was really rather 
unfortunate, for with one ship going strong, it was impos- 
sible for the Vice-Admiral to attempt the rescue of the 
people in Scharnhorst. Rain had set in. There were 
signs of mist and thick weather. At any moment the 



198 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

light might fail. The conditions of the morning had been 
ideal for the control of guns at long range. These condi- 
tions had long since vanished. No doubt it went greatly 
against the grain to leave the brave fellows of the Scham- 
horst in their hopeless struggle, but the necessities of the 
situation gave no choice. For that matter, when the 
loss of life that took place in the Gneisenau is considered, 
it is highly probable that had the British ships stopped 
to look for people of the Schamhorst they would have 
found none. For she turned over and sank, not as Gneise- 
nau subsequently did, so slowly that the people on board 
were able to muster on deck and then clamber on to the 
ship's sides as she heeled over, but with such fearful rapid- 
ity that it is said that a salvo which Carnarvon had fired at 
her when she was still afloat and showed no signs of imme- 
diate collapse, actually pitched in the water where she 
had sunk ! If this story is true she must have turned over 
and vanished from sight in from ten to fifteen seconds. In 
this instance there can have been few if any survivors 
left swimming in the water, and those must have perished 
before help could reach them. 

With the disappearance of Schamhorst Admiral Sturdee 
made a double turn with his ships to bring them more or 
less into the wake of Gneisenau and adopted a new dis- 
position. He followed Gneisenau on the starboard side 
himself, in Invincible, and sent Inflexible to take up a cor- 
responding position on the port quarter. This brought 
both ships within a range of about 12,000 yards of the 
Gneisenau, who for the next forty minutes was subjected 
to a double attack, one on each side. At 5:15 she made 
her last effort. She hit Invincible amidships. 

It is curious that after 5 130, when every gun but one was 
out of action and the ship had a heavy list, that she should 



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200 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

still have been able to fire her last surviving piece. But 
such incidents are common to all naval actions. It is 
said that, at the battle of Tuschima, when Savarojf had not 
only been shot to pieces, but seemed to be red hot from 
stem to stern, one of the 6-inch casemates kept at work 
quite steadily throughout, the last shot being fired when 
the ship was on her beam ends, in the act of sinking, so 
that the shell must have been shot straight up into the air. 

"The prisoners of war from the Gneisenau report that 
by the time the ammunition was expended, some 600 men 
had been killed and wounded. The surviving officers 
and men were all ordered on deck and told to provide 
themselves with hammocks and any articles that could 
support them in the water. 

"When the ship capsized and sank there were probably 
some two hundred unwounded survivors in the water, but 
owing to the shock of the cold water, many were drowned 
within sight of the boats and ship. 

"Every effort was made to save life as quickly as possi- 
ble, both by boats and from the ships; life-buoys were 
thrown and ropes lowered, but only a proportion could be 
be rescued. The Invincible alone rescued 108 men, four- 
teen of whom were found to be dead after being brought 
on board; these men were buried at sea the following day 
with full military honours." 

Some of the German prisoners believed that Gneisenau 
was not sunk by gun-fire at all, and said that the comman- 
der had had the Kingston valves opened as soon as the 
ammunition was exhausted and there was no possibility 
of carrying on the fight. 



CHAPTER XIV 
Battle of the Falkland Islands (III) 

C. ACTION WITH THE LIGHT CRUISERS 

At about i p.m, when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau 
turned to port to engage the Invincible and Inflexible the 
enemy's light cruisers turned to starboard to escape; the 
Dresden was leading and the Niirnberg and Leipzig 
followed on each quarter. 

"In accordance with my instructions, the Glasgow, Kent, 
and Cornwall at once went in chase of these ships; the 
Carnarvon, whose speed was insufficient to overtake them, 
closed the battle-cruisers. 

"The Glasgow drew well ahead of the Cornwall and Kent, 
and at 3 p.m. shots were exchanged with the Leipzig at 
12,000 yards. The Glasgow's object was to endeavour 
to outrange the Leipzig with her 6-inch guns and thus 
cause her to alter course and give the Cornwall and Kent a 
chance of coming into action. 

"At 4:17 p.m. the Cornwall opened fire, also on the 
Leipzig. 

"At 7:17 p.m. the Leipzig was on fire fore and aft, and 
the Cornwall and Glasgow ceased fire. 

"The Leipzig turned over on her port side and dis- 
appeared at 9 p.m. Seven officers and eleven men were 
saved. 

"At 3 136 p.m. the Cornwall ordered the Kent to engage 
the Niirnberg, the nearest cruiser to her. 

"Owing to the excellent and strenuous efforts of the 



202 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

engine-room department, the Kent was able to get within 
range of the Number g at 5 p.m. At 6:35 p.m. the Number g 
was on fire forward and ceased firing. The Kent also 
ceased firing and closed to 3,300 yards; as the colours 
were still observed to be flying in the Numberg, the Kent 
opened fire again. Fire was finally stopped five minutes 
later on the colours being hauled down, and every pre- 
paration was made to save life. The Nur7iberg sank at 
7:27 p.m. and as she sank a group of men were waving a 
German ensign attached to a staff*. Twelve men were 
rescued, but only seven survived. 

"The Kent had four killed and twelve wounded mostly 
caused by one shell. 

"During the time the three cruisers were engaged with 
the Numberg and Leipzig, the Dresden, who was beyond 
her consorts, effected her escape owing to her superior 
speed. The Glasgow was the only cruiser with sufficient 
speed to have had any chance of success. However, she 
was fully employed in engaging the Leipzig for over an 
hour before either the Cornwall or Kent could come up 
and get within range. During this time the Dresden was 
able to increase her distance and get out of sight. 

"The weather changed after 4 p.m. and the visibility 
was much reduced; further, the sky was overcast and 
cloudy, thus assisting the Dresden to get away unob- 
served. " 

Sir Doveton Sturdee's account of the two actions 
between the two light cruisers is almost too syncopated 
to be intelligible. Fortunately, however, many other 
records of these two encounters are available, so it is 
possible to describe what happened in somewhat greater 
detail. From 1 :20 until about quarter to four, Glasgow, 
Kent, and Cornzvall were engaged in a plain stern chase 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 203 

with the three enemy cruisers. At that time the enemy 
began separating out, and the three British cruisers 
worked into a line abreast following suit. The Glasgow 
was at the right of the line between three and four miles 
from Cornwall and about a mile to a mile and a half ahead 
of her. Kent was to the left of -Cornwall, about two and 
a half miles off and about abreast of her. Straight ahead 
of Cornwall was Leipzig, the centre ship of the enemy. 
She was about eight miles from Cornwall and between 
six and seven from Glasgow. To Leipzig s right, and two 
or three miles ahead of her, was Dresden, and to her left 
and about the same distance off was Nurnberg. There 
had been a certain exchange of shots before this condition 
was reached, for Glasgow, very much the fastest of the 
British cruisers, had more than once drawn up towards 
Leipzig, and opened fire on her in hopes of turning her 
towards Cornwall and Kent. And each time her attack 
was met by resolute and accurate fire by the Germans. 
As the German ships began to separate, Glasgow headed 
off to the right towards Dresden, once more coming under 
the broadside fire of Leipzig. It must be remembered 
that Glasgow only had two 6-inch guns, only one of which — 
the bow gun— could be employed in these conditions, 
and that the Leipzig's 4.2*s completely outranged her 
4-inch. It appears to be a universal practice with the 
Germans to mount all their guns from the largest to the 
smallest, so that they can be used at extreme elevation. 
It will be remembered how the Koenigsberg showed the 
most perfect accuracy of fire at nearly n,ooo yards with 
guns of a calibre that in pre-war days few in the British 
Service would have thought it possible to employ at 
greater range than 7,000 or 8,000 yards. These efforts 
of Glasgow to manoeuvre Leipzig into contact with Cornwall, 



2o 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

gave Dresden a chance she was not slow to take. She was 
much the fastest of all the German craft, and managed, 
between four and five, to slip completely out of sight and 
escape. 

This escape was made easier, and all the shooting 
throughout the two cruiser actions was made much more 
difficult by the sudden change in the weather that has 
already been noted as having begun shortly before 4 
o'clock. A drizzling rain had set in, and not only had it 
become practically impossible to use rangefinders owing 
to the poor light, but it became extremely hard to detect 
the fall of shot and so correct the fire. In considering 
these two fights then, the extremely difficult conditions 
that prevailed must be taken into account. Let us deal 
first with the pursuit and destruction of Nurnberg. 

"kent" v. "nurnberg" 

At 5 o'clock Kent, after a chase of nearly four hours, 
was getting within range of Nurnberg. Nurnberg had 
crept away to the eastward of Leipzig, so that by the time 
fire was opened, a considerable distance separated this 
from the other engagements. In point of fact, when the 
action began, the rain and increasing mist hid every other 
ship from sight. It was Nurnberg which was first to open 
fire and, so far as could be judged, the range must have 
been about 11,000 yards or slightly over. Kent held her 
fire for another ten minutes, as if waiting to see what the 
Nurnberg s guns could do at this range. She could of 
course, only use her two guns on the quarterdeck, and 
the after gun on the port side. To the astonishment of 
the Kent all her first salvoes were right over. The range 
would have been a long one for a 6-inch gun; it seemed 
almost fabulous for a 4.2. Ten minutes later Kent opened 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 205 

with her bow turret, and for the next half hour an active 
duel was maintained. The Kent had sheered off a little 
to the left so as to bring her forward casemate guns also 
to bear. There was no doubt about the Nurnberg s 
shots falling over close, and the Kent's guns seemed from 
the ship to be fairly on the target. But for a consider- 
able time there was no evidence that they were hitting, 
and Kent was certainly not suffering from Nurnberg's 
fire, astonishingly accurate as it was. But suddenly, 
soon after half-past five, Kent, who was keeping up a 
speed of nearly a knot more than she had ever done before, 
began to gain enormously on her opponent. The range 
had been over 11,000 yards at 5 o'clock; by twenty 
minutes to six it got almost down to 7,000. It was 
obvious that Niirnbergs motive power had somehow 
come to grief. Had one of Kent's shells landed in her 
engine, or had one of the boilers, under the strain of so 
many hours' high pressure, given way? 

Whatever the cause, the results were exactly what 
Captain Allen was looking for. If the light had been bad 
at five it was getting worse every minute, and if the 
business was to be finished it had to be finished quickly. 
With the shortening range, the effect of the British lyddite 
was soon visible, and Nurnberg had no alternative but to 
repeat the manoeuvre of Von Spee and turn broadside to 
for her assailant. Kent turned too, and not this time to 
lengthen the range, but to bring her whole nine broadside 
guns to bear. In point of fact, she closed the range as 
rapidly as she could, consistently with keeping all her 
guns bearing, and by 6 o'clock had reduced it to 3,000 
yards. Nurnberg was now a beaten ship. She had one 
topmast gone; her funnels were riddled; her speed had 
fallen from twenty-four knots at 5 o'clock to about 



206 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

eighteen at a quarter to six, and now almost to ten. Of 
the five guns on her port side only two were in action. 
Shortly after this she turned bows on to the Kent, and 
was at once caught by several 6-inch shells in the fore- 
castle, which smashed up both the bow guns, shattering 
the bridge and conning-tower. Ever since the turn at a 
quarter to six, Kent had kept ahead of her, though shorten- 
ing the range, doubtless with an eye to the possibilities 
of Number g using a torpedo. When, therefore, at 6.10 
she was almost stopped and seemed beaten, Kent passed 
her and pushed on to about 5,000 yards to await develop- 
ments. Shortly after six, Number g ceased fire altogether, 
and seemed a wreck. But her colours were still flying, 
and it was necessary to fire at her again. Just before 
seven she hauled down her colours and surrendered. Both 
ships were now at a dead stop, and Kent got out her boats 
as far as she could to take possession of the enemy. But, 
as Captain Allen told the Association of Kentish Men in 
his very interesting letter about the action, the ship had 
received no less than thirty-six hits during the short but 
decisive engagement, and though she had been singularly 
fortunate in losing very few men — four men killed and 
twelve wounded — all her boats but two were in splinters, 
and both of these needed repairs before they could be used. 
They were, however, manned and lowered as quickly as 
possible, but they were hardly on their way towards the 
N umber g, some two miles off, when the enemy was seen 
to turn slowly on her side and sink. As she went below 
the waves, some of her gallant crew were seen on the stern 
waving the German ensign defiantly. For an hour and 
a half, that is until some time after dark, the Kent's two 
boats searched for survivors. Only seven were saved 
alive. Some were lashed to hammocks and gratings, 




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208 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

and others were swimming. But in the extreme cold 
the great majority perished. One account of this dismal 
episode that has been sent to me says that the albatrosses 
were actually attacking the living as well as the dead in 
this last melancholy scene. 

*" Cornwall" and " Glasgow" v. " Leipzig" 

We have seen in the account of the Kent and Nurnherg 
action that up to 4 o'clock cruisers of both sides kept 
fairly well together, and that then the Germans opened 
out. It was shortly after this that they got out of sight 
of each other. Kent pursued Number g in a more easterly 
direction, the Glasgow and Cornwall pursuing Leipzig 
more to the south. In order to bring the Leipzig to action 
Glasgow was sent forward on the Cornwall 9 s left, which 
made Leipzig, while still of course retreating as fast as she 
could, turn slightly towards Cornwall and transfer her 
fire to her. All three ships were now firing, but the shots 
were falling short, until at about 4:20 Cornwall made the 
first hit on the enemy, carrying away his foremast. This 
made the enemy edge away to the right, a move which was 
followed by Cornwall also. The range was now shortening. 
When it was 8,000 yards Leipzig made her first hits. 
Cornwall thereupon altered course still more to starboard 
thus bringing about two effective results. The whole 
broadside of guns came in play, and the change of course 
threw out Leipzig s fire control. Both ships kept on these 
courses, and the range increased again to nearly 10,000 
yards. As we have previously seen, it was at this time 
that the weather began to get really thick, and as a conse- 
quence of this it became exceedingly difficult to see the fall 
of shot, but it is worth remembering that Leipzig was 
still hitting with her 4:2's. Shortly after 5 o'clock, 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 209 

however, the range reached over 10,000 yards, and it 
became necessary to close once more. Between five and 
a quarter to six Cornwall, that had now clearly got the 
speed of Leipzig, carried out precisely the same tactics 
that the Vice-Admiral had adopted in the case of the 
battle-cruisers. Alternately, that is to say, closing the 
enemy at full speed, shelling him with the foVsle guns, 
and then turning sharply to starboard to bring the whole 
broadside to bear. At about a quarter to six Leipzig 
landed a shell in Cornwall's paint room, which shook the 
ship but did no damage. Captain Ellerton now decided 
to shorten the range and use lyddite shell. In the half 
hour between a quarter to six and a quarter past the range 
was brought down to about 8,500, and by about 6.40 it 
was reduced to 7,000. A far better proportion of hits 
was now being obtained, and the effect of the lyddite 
became immediately apparent. First one and then 
another of Leipzig s guns ceased firing, and by ten minutes 
to seven a big fire started forward. A few minutes before 
Cornwall had heard the news by wireless of the sinking of 
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and officers and men redoubled 
their efforts. The range was closed still more, the hitting 
became more intense, but the enemy in spite of his losses 
and damages kept every gun that could still work firing, 
and was actually hitting Cornwall frequently right up 
to five minutes past seven, but in another five minutes 
two of her funnels were gone and the ship was blazing 
fore and aft. 

Cornwall thereupon ceased fire, expecting the enemy to 
strike his colours, but he did not do so. So Cornwall 
closed about 5,000 yards and gave her a few more salvoes 
of lyddite. At a quarter to eight there was a loud explo- 
sion on board Leipzig and her mainmast went over the 



210 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

side. At 8 :i2, it was of course dark by now, she sent up 
signals of distress. Both Cornwall and Glasgow now 
lowered boats as fast as they could be repaired and 
manned, but they were not able to reach the enemy until 
after 9 o'clock, and before they did so the ship turned over 
and sank. Only six officers and nine men were rescued 
from the water. Heavy as the casualties must have been, 
there were in all probability more than these unwounded 
at the end of the action, and all of those not killed, 
Wounded as well as unwounded, might have been saved, 
for the ship was not actually in a sinking condition from 
Cornwall and Glasgow's fire, and had been sunk by the 
orders of her own officers. 

Cornwall was hit eighteen times, but did not suffer a 
single casualty. Glasgow had one man killed and five 
wounded. One of the Leipzig s officers said that from a 
quarter past six till seven, that is when the range had been 
brought down to about 7,000 yards, some rounds out of 
every salvo fired hit the ship. The effect of the lyddite 
appears to have been appalling. Men were blown to 
pieces and the ship was littered with ghastly fragments and 
relics of humanity. When the ship could reply no more, 
for there was no ammunition left for such guns as might still 
have been worked, the captain called the survivors together 
and said any one who liked could go and haul the flag down, 
but he would not do it. Nor did any one volunteer. 
About fifty jumped overboard, and when the ship sent up 
signals of distress there were only ^eighteen left alive on 
board. All but one of them were saved. 

D. ACTION WITH THE ENEMY TRANSPORTS 

"A report was received at 11:27 a.m. from H.M.S. 
Bristol that three ships of the enemy, probably transports 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 211 

or colliers, had appeared off Port Pleasant. The Bristol 
was ordered to take the Macedonia under his orders and 
destroy the transports. 

"H.M.S. Macedonia reports that only two ships, steam- 
ships Baden and Santa Isabel, were present; both ships 
were sunk after the removal of the crew." 

It is not clear from this what became of the third ship. 
But there were persistent rumours in various South 
American ports that the Germans had, in the course of 
the autumn, collected a very considerable number of 
trained reservists from the different South American 
States and cities, and had got them on board a transport 
with arms, etc., so as to be ready for any military purpose 
the naval commander-in-chief might select. It is exceed- 
ingly probable that the reason Von Spee did not appear 
off the Falkland Islands till five weeks after his defeat of 
Admiral Cradock was that he had had to spend a con- 
siderable time in getting these reservists ready for action. 
It certainly is quite clear that on December 8th he arrived 
off the Falkland Islands intending to attack, and it is 
far more probable that he intended to attack, seize, and 
annex the colony than merely to subdue and rob it. To 
seize and annex he would have needed troops, and the 
third transport that Macedonia did not find when she got 
Santa Isabel and Baden probably contained the men 
destined to hold the colony. That the British Admiralty 
expected some attack of this kind is shown from the fact 
that Canopus, after being ordered north, was told to 
return to the Falkland Islands and to do the best possible 
for the defence of the colony. The only military strength 
possessed by the colony was three hundred volunteers 
who had had very little training and practically no arms 
beyond rifles. Good Hope had left a field-gun when 



212 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

passing at the beginning of October, but of other artillery 
there was none. The seizure of the island, then, by Von 
Spee's force of five ships, supplemented by a regiment of 
reservists, was a perfectly feasible project. Had it 
succeeded and the island been left with an adequate supply 
of machine and field guns, to resist a landing, it would 
have been an extremely difficult job to have turned them 
out. For with guns properly emplaced, the ships' artil- 
lery could have done very little to protect landing parties, 
and Admiral Sturdee's ships carried no sufficient surplus 
of men for it to have been practicable to incur a heavy 
sacrifice of life to regain the island. So far as this adven- 
ture was concerned the whole thing miscarried through 
being a week too late. 



CHAPTER XV 
Battle of the Falkland Islands (iv) 

strategy — tactics — gunnery 

Von Spee's mistakes we have seen in the course of my 
comment on the narrative. They were broadly fourfold. 
Three arose from an inability to realize from the very 
beginning the true character of the situation, the 
fourth from want of resolution to fight an unequal action 
on the only conditions in which any success was to be 
gained. 

Von Spee's initial blunder was approaching the Falk- 
land Islands with the whole of his force instead of making 
a reconnaissance by a single fast, light cruiser. It was 
obvious that he could gain nothing by surprise. For it 
was beyond the power of the colony to extemporize 
defence. It was equally obvious that he stood to lose 
everything if he was himself surprised. And however 
improbable it might have seemed to him that a force 
superior to his had reached the Falkland Islands by this 
date, he should yet have realized that there was nothing 
impossible in such a force being there very much earlier. 
For from the North Sea to the Falkland Islands is only 
a little over 7,000 miles. He might have credited the 
British Admiralty with a willingness to avenge Cradock's 
defeat and with ingenuity enough to arrange the most 
secret coaling of any force that was sent out. When all 
allowances were made, there should have been no diffi- 
culty in battle-cruisers reaching the South Atlantic three 

213 



2i 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

weeks after they were despatched. Nor was there any 
reason why the despatch should be delayed more than 
two weeks after the news of the disaster. 

If Gneisenau, instead of turning away when the tripod 
masts of the battle-cruisers were seen, had persisted in 
the advance towards Kent; had Scharnhorst joined her at 
top speed, it is morally certain that Kent and Macedonia 
would have been destroyed before either of the battle- 
cruisers could come to their rescue. It would not have 
been difficult to have found dead ground that the guns of 
Canopus could not reach, and from such a point to have 
subjected the battle-cruisers to a most damaging suc- 
cession of salvoes, as they emerged from the narrow 
channel, before there was any possibility of their replying. 
It was indeed possible that the motive power of each 
might have been so injured that a pursuit by the battle- 
cruisers would have been impossible. At the worst, Von 
Spee would have paid no higher price than he ultimately 
paid, and he might have won an exchange entirely bene- 
ficial to German arms. Certainly, an action fought in 
these conditions would have given ample time for the 
light cruisers to make their way into the winding and 
uncharted fjords of Patagonia. Here Dresden main- 
tained herself for many weeks, and who knows but that 
the others might have lasted longer still? Had it been 
possible for the three to keep together they would have 
been formidable opponents for any single cruiser in search 
of them. Had they scattered and been able to maintain 
their coal supply, they could have held up British trade 
for a considerable time. 

Just as Von Spee missed this real opportunity, so, later 
on, he first of all kept his light cruisers with him far too 
long, and then, throughout the action, accepted battle 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 215 

far too much on Admiral Sturdee's conditions. But the 
initial mistake was the greatest. 

BRITISH STRATEGY 

The battle of the Falkland Islands was an event of 
enormous importance and interest, and I propose to 
discuss a few of its more obvious bearings. Let us first 
consider its immediate direct and indirect effects upon 
the course of the war. The overseas naval situation at 
the end of October, while not in the larger sense at all 
threatening or dangerous, afforded nevertheless grounds for 
very great anxiety. Emden had made a series of sensa- 
tional captures in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. 
Karlsruhe was working havoc with the British trade off 
the northeast corner of South America. The German 
China squadron had evaded the Japanese and British 
and Allied fleets in the East, and Australia and her con- 
sorts had obtained no news of its whereabouts when 
cruising between the Antipodes and the German islands. 
A few British ships had been taken by Dresden on her 
passage down to the Straits of Magellan, and the public 
was entirely without information which led them to 
suppose that either Von Spee or any of the raiding cruisers 
were the subject of any effective pursuit. Though the 
loss of ships by hostile cruisers was absurdly smaller 
than experts had anticipated, it was quite large enough 
to disconcert and alarm the public, who knew, after all, 
very little about the character of those anticipations. 
Suddenly in the first week of November came two thunder- 
claps. Admiral Cradock, with a preposterously weak 
force, had been engaged and been defeated by the lost 
Von Spee. Of the four ships composing his squadron, 
the armed liner Otranto and the light cruiser Glasgow had 



216 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

escaped, but Good Hope and Monmouth had gone down, 
lost with all hands. Then on November 3rd came the 
bombardment of Lowestoft by certain German cruisers. 
It was the first attack of any kind on the people of these 
islands, and it was hastily explained to us by the Admi- 
ralty — and quite rightly — that the thing was without a 
military objective or military importance, and as if to 
forestall naval criticism, we were further told that it would 
not be allowed to disturb any previously made Admiralty 
plans. We were asked to believe that it was a mere 
piece of frightfulness. 

But it is not certain that this was the only motive of 
the adventure. May it not have been done in the express 
hope that the British higher command, face to face with 
a shocked and outraged public opinion, would hesitate 
about diminishing those forces at home which were best 
calculated to intercept and bring to action the fast vessels 
which alone could be employed with any chance of safety 
on these bombarding expeditions? Is it not more than 
possible that the German staff, knowing the prospects 
of the rebellion in South Africa, was most desperately 
anxious to give Von Spee an added chance of crossing 
the Atlantic in security and lending the tremendous 
support of his squadron to the German forces in South- 
West Africa, who, with this added prestige, could be 
counted upon to attract all the disaffected South African 
sentiment to its side? Were not these bombardments, 
in short, undertaken solely to compel us to keep our 
stronger units concentrated? 

Whether this was the German plan or not, let it stand 
to the credit of the Fisher-Churchill regime that no fear, 
either of public opinion or as to the success of future 
raids, stood in the way of dealing promptly with the Von 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 217 

Spee menace. It should undoubtedly have been dealt 
with long before. It was a blunder that Jerram's force 
was not overwhelmingly superior to Von Spee's; a blunder 
that he had not been instructed to shadow him from the 
beginning. Cradock's mission ought never to have been 
permitted. But now that fate had exposed these errors 
of policy, the right thing at last was done. Yet it must 
have taken some nerve to do it. The British forces in 
the North Sea had certainly been greatly strengthened 
since the outbreak of war. Agincourt, Erin, Canada, 
Benbow, and certain lighter units had joined the Grand 
Fleet. Tiger was finished and commissioned as part of 
the Battle-Cruiser Fleet under Sir David Beatty. This 
gave him four battle-cruisers of a speed of twenty-eight 
knots and armed with 13.5 guns, in addition to the four 
of an older type — New Zealand, Indomitable, Invincible, 
Inflexible. To take two of these and send them after 
Von Spee reduced this force very considerably, but it was 
probably thought that the addition of Tiger left Sir David 
strong enough for the main purpose. After victory had 
been won a month later, rumours were prevalent that a 
third battle-cruiser had been despatched westward as 
well, but this has never been confirmed. But on the 
main point, namely, the vital importance of sending an 
adequate force for the pursuit and capture of Von Spee, 
the strategical decision was indisputably right. 

Its value can be judged by the immediate results of 
the victory. Between November 1st and December 
8th it is almost true to say that British trade with the 
west coast of South America was at a standstill. On the 
east coast things were very little better. For if shippers 
were still willing to send their ships to sea, it was only 
on the receipt of greatly enhanced freights. Immediately 



218 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

after the victory Valparaiso shipping put to sea as if no 
war was in existence, and all Pacific and South Atlantic 
freight fell immediately to normal. Even the escape of 
Dresden did not qualify the universal sense of relief. The 
repercussion in South Africa was equally prompt. The 
rebellion in the Anglo-Dutch colonies had been put down. 
But to embark on the conquest of German South-West 
Africa was a different thing altogether, and certainly one 
that could not be attempted so long as there was the least 
suspicion of insecurity in General Botha's sea com- 
munications. And while Von Spee was at large this 
insecurity was obvious. One of the direct results then 
of the despatch of Admiral Sturdee to the South Atlantic 
was to make the first military invasion of German territory 
both possible and ultimately successful. 

Apart from its immediate results in the way of relieving 
British trade in South America and removing the last 
obstacle to active British military policy in South Africa, 
the Falkland Islands engagement was of enormous value 
not only in re-asserting the prestige of the British Navy, 
but in giving fresh heart to all the Allies after the exhaust- 
ing struggles to defeat the German advances on the French 
capital and Calais. It was especially the first definite proof 
the Alliance had received that British sea-power was no 
vague and shadowy thing, but a real force which, rightly 
and relentlessly employed, must ensure the ultimate 
victory of Allied arms. These were its good sides. 

It had one lamentable and disastrous consequence. 
Emden was captured before the battle-cruisers left their 
English port. Karlsruhe was never heard of again, and 
the rumours of her destruction seemed before December 
to be well founded, so that after the victory of December 
8th, beyond the fugitive Dresden and two armed liners 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 219 

unaccounted for, there was not a German ship in the 
world to threaten a single British trade or territorial inter- 
est. For Koenigsberg, if she had escaped the guns of the 
two ships that had attempted her destruction in the mouth 
of the Rufigi, which was doubtful, was at any rate so closely 
blockaded that her power for active mischief was clearly 
at an end. German naval force was then limited to the 
High Seas Fleet, still of course intact, but with apparently 
no wish to attempt an active, and no power to make an 
effective, offensive. Of this force Sir John Jellicoe seemed 
to have taken the measure. Four months of activity, 
strenuous and anxious beyond description, had made our 
fleet bases proof against submarine attack, so that the only 
offensive open to the German fleet, that embodied in the 
policy of attrition, was no longer a menace. The submarine 
attack on trade was unexpected. At a blow, then, White- 
hall, which for four months had been kept on tenterhooks 
by its unpreparedness for cruiser or submarine warfare, 
suddenly found itself without a naval care in the world. 

But Mr. Churchill could not be idle, and the tempter 
planted in his fertile brain the crazy conception that the 
unemployed and unemployable fleet should add to his 
laurels, by repeating, on the Dardanelles forts the perform- 
ances of the German howitzers at Liege, Maubeuge, and 
Antwerp. The failure of the Naval Brigade at Antwerp 
was to be picturesquely avenged. In judging of the re- 
sults of the Falkland Islands battle then, we must set 
against its immediate and resounding benefits the humil- 
iating tragedy of Gallipoli. 

THE TACTICS OF THE BATTLE 

The battle of the Falkland Islands, as we have seen, 
resolved itself into three separate engagements, and two 



220 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

of these may be taken as classic examples of the tactics 
of superior speed and armament, unconfused by the long- 
distance torpedo. It was this theory of tactics that held 
the field in England from 1904 or 1905, when the Dread- 
nought policy was definitely adopted, until 191 2 or 191 3 
when the effect in naval action of the new torpedo, was 
first exhaustively analyzed. These actions, then, taken 
in conjunction with the Sydney -Emden fight, stand entirely 
by themselves, and it is possible that very little naval 
fighting will ever take place again under similar conditions. 

At the Dogger Bank and off the Jutland Reef the tor- 
pedo was employed to the fullest extent, with results that 
we shall see when we come to consider these actions. We 
have of course, no direct statement that no torpedoes 
were employed in the Falkland engagements. Indeed in 
a modified way the torpedoes certainly had some influence. 
But there is the whole world of difference between tor- 
pedoes fired singly from one warship to another, and tor- 
pedoes used both in great quantities and by light craft 
which, under the defensive properties of their speed, can 
close to ranges sufficiently short to give the torpedo a 
reasonable chance of hitting, or, by taking station ahead, 
can add the target's to the torpedo's speed to increase its 
range. We shall be broadly right then in treating these 
engagements as affairs of gunnery purely, for the torpedo 
had seemingly no influence in the periods that were de- 
cisive. 

Briefly put, what were the tactics of Admiral Sturdee 
with the battle-cruisers, and Captain Ellerton with Corn- 
wall and Glasgow on December 8th ? Their business was 
to destroy an enemy far weaker than themselves, one who 
had neither strength enough to fight victoriously nor speed 
enough to fly successfully. Both followed the same plan. 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 221 

They employed their superior speed, first to get near 
enough for their heavier guns to be used with some effect, 
and then, whenever the enemy tried to close, to get to a 
range at which his inferior pieces could be expected to get 
a considerable percentage of hits, they manoeuvred to 
increase the range so as to keep the enemy at a permanent 
gunnery disadvantage. As this long-range fire gradually 
told, the enemy's artillery became necessarily less and less 
effective, until he was reduced to a condition in which he 
could be closed and finished off without taking any risks 
at all. These tactics resulted in Gneisenau and Scharn- 
horst being destroyed by Invincible and Inflexible, the 
whole crews of both German ships being either killed or 
captured, while the two battle-cruisers had three casual- 
ties only, Invincible was actually hit by twenty-two shells, 
Inflexible by only three, and it was the latter ship who had 
the only three men hit. Cornwall received eighteen direct 
hits and, like Invincible, had no casualties at all, while 
Glasgow had one man killed and five wounded. 

Obviously an action could not be fought upon these 
lines unless time and space sufficed in which to bring 
about the desired result. In point of fact, when the dis- 
parity of force is considered, the time taken was extraor- 
dinary. Inflexible opened fire on the German cruisers 
at five minutes to one, Scharnhorst sank at seventeen 
minutes past four, and Gneisenau just after 6 o'clock. If 
we suppose only twelve 12-inch guns to have been bearing 
throughout the action, we have one hundred 12-inch gun 
hours! There was time therefore — at a battle-practice 
rate of fire — for both ships to have fired away their entire 
stocks of ammunition at least dozens of times over. What 
they did, of course, was to fire extremely deliberately 
when the target was within range and the conditions suit- 



222 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

able, and to cease fire altogether when they were ma- 
noeuvring. 

In the Cornwall-Glasgow-Leipzig action, fire was opened 
at about 4 o'clock, and it was not till about 7 :8 that the 
enemy was beaten. An hour afterwards he sent up signals 
of distress and surrendered. Here there were eleven 6-inch 
guns in the two British broadsides, and five 4-inch, against 
a handful of 4.25. The disparity in force was perhaps 
not quite so great as in the battle-cruiser action, but these 
things are difficult to compare, and from all accounts 6- 
inch lyddite, once the hitting begins, does not take long 
to put a light cruiser of the Leipzig class completely out 
of action. 

Captain Allen's action against Ntirnberg is in very sharp 
contrast to this. He opened fire at 5 o'clock, some few 
minutes after the enemy had attacked him. The range 
was about 11,000 yards, and for some time no apparent 
damage was done. At 5:45, however, though Ntirnberg 
seemed still undamaged, the range was reduced by 4,000 
yards, owing to N timber gs sudden loss of speed. There 
then followed twenty minutes of action at ranges between 
6,000 and 3,000, and these sufficed to finish the enemy 
off altogether. It may be objected to Captain Allen's 
tactics that he received twice as many hits as the Cornwall 
and had twelve men wounded and four killed. But as 
Admiral Sturdee points out in his despatch these casualties 
were almost entirely caused by a single chance shell that 
burst in a gun position, right amongst the crew. No one 
in any of the very exposed positions — control tops, range- 
finder positions, etc. — was even touched. Too much, 
therefore, must not be made of the casualties, for in this 
matter chance enters too largely for safe deductions to be 
made. Invincible, for instance, received twenty-two hits 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 223 

without a single casualty, Inflexible three hits and three 
casualties. Cornwall and Kent were sister ships, and if 
the gun shields of Kent were unable to protect one crew, 
any one of the eighteen shells that hit Cornwall might have 
done equal damage to that suffered by Kent. The value, 
as it seems to me, of the Kent-N urnberg example lies in 
this, that for all practical purposes exactly the same result 
was obtained, at the same cost, in one hour — of which 
twenty minutes was at almost point-blank range — in this 
action, as was got by two ships in three hours in the Leipzig 
action, and by two battle-cruisers in five hours in the battle 
cruiser action. 

It would be a mistake to assume that we see a new con- 
trast in methods in these engagements. Kent certainly fol- 
lowed the Nelsonian tradition. He closed with his enemy 
at top speed, and got not only the full artillery value of 
his attack, by making hitting easier and therefore more 
certain, but won what is hardly less valuable, the vast 
moral advantage of giving his enemy no breathing time 
at all. There are fifty parallels to this, of which Trafalgar 
is in fact only the supreme example. Given a superior 
force of guns — obtained by Nelson by the concentration 
of the whole of his fleet on the centre and rear of the enemy 
— the tactical plan is to be found in the method of bringing 
these guns to do their work in the shortest possible time. 

We can find many exact parallels to Admiral Sturdee's 
tactics in the war of 18 12, for the Americans employed 
them against us with the utmost success on several occa- 
sions. Indeed, it was these victories that led first to a 
practical revival of gunnery skill — brought about with 
such effect by Broke — and later to Sir Howard Douglas's 
effort to create a scientific study of gunnery in the British 
Navy. It is now nearly a hundred years since his historic 



224 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE , 

work on naval gunnery was published. His father had 
been one of Howe's captains and had invented an import- 
ant improvement in naval guns. The son entered the 
Artillery, and his education, no less than his family tradi- 
tion, made him both an interested observer and a very 
competent critic of the naval gunnery of the period. He 
had, in his own words, witnessed "the triumphant and 
undisputed domination of the British marine," after the 
victories of Nelson had swept continental fleets from 
the sea, and then, seven years after Trafalgar, he 
had seen this triumphant navy utterly humiliated by 
the Americans in the war of 1812. He analyzed the 
causes both of the triumph and the humiliation, and was, 
perhaps, the first to lay down the most important of all 
maxims of naval doctrine — then and still also the most 
neglected. 

He pointed out how, in the later years of the Republic, 
practical gunnery amongst French seamen was so wretched 
that strongly manned ships were seen "employing batter- 
ies of twenty or thirty guns against our vessels without 
more effect than might easily have been produced by one 
or two well-directed pieces. Indeed in some cases, heavy 
frigates used powerful batteries against our vessels for a 
considerable time without producing any effect at all." 
Thus, the victories of the Nelsonian era were made possible 
because of the great disparity between the two forces in 
gunnery skill, and it was this disparity that made it possi- 
ble to adopt the tactics by which the victors got their 
great successes. Victory was won by superior skill and 
tactics founded upon its employment. And in the hour 
of victory we forgot its conditioning cause. 

"We became, 5 ' says Douglas, "too confident by being 
feebly opposed, and then slack in warlike exercises, by not 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 225 

being opposed at all. And, lastly, in many cases inexpert 
for want of even drill practice. And herein consisted the 
great disadvantage in which, without suspecting it, we 
entered, with too great confidence, into a war with a mar- 
ine much more expert than that of any of our European 
enemies. Comparative views of warlike skill, as well as 
of bulk and force . . . are necessary to correct analysis 
of naval actions." 

In the course of his work he made a very detailed analy- 
sis of the actions between the Macedonian and the United 
States, the Guerriere and the Constitution, the Shannon and 
the Chesapeake, and the Java and the Constitution. In the 
three instances in which the Americans were victorious, 
they owed success to no superiority in the handling of 
their ships, but to a combination of longer-range guns and 
a much higher accomplishment in marksmanship and 
tactics designed to keep outside the range of British effec- 
tive fire. In none of the three cases could any criticism 
be based upon the bravery of any of the British officers 
and crews. All were, in fact, honourably acquitted by 
court martial. But it was obvious in each case that had 
the gunnery skill been equal, while the difference in arma- 
ment might ultimately have been decisive, the enemy 
would have had to pay very dearly indeed for victory. 
In each case, in point of fact, the victor's losses were trivial. 
Amongst these, the action between Shannon and Chesa- 
peake stands out just as the Kent and Number g action 
stands out in the Falkland Islands. Broke, in the first 
very few minutes of the engagement, established a com- 
plete fire ascendancy over Chesapeake, and had he chosen, 
could have hauled off and pounded her into submission 
without risking the life of a single one of his men. But, 
as in the first instance, he had relied upon close action, 



226 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

trusting with perfect confidence to the skill and marksman- 
ship of his well-trained crew, so after he had got Chesa- 
peake out of control, he chose the quickest path to victory. 
He ran straight alongside and boarded her without a 
moment's delay. As at Trafalgar, so here we see the 
British commander pre-occupied with one thought only — 
to bring the enemy to action as soon as possible and to 
finish the business quickly and decisively. So long as 
this is ensured, there is no thought of losses nor any hesita- 
tion in risking the ship. 

Why was there any other tactical conception? It 
arose, as we have just seen, in the war of 1812 and was 
spontaneously reproduced in 1905, and in both cases it 
was the product of a new skill in long-range gunnery. In 
18 1 2 there was the choice in armament, long range and 
short range that existed in 1905, but with this striking 
difference. The long-range gun of a century ago might 
be an eighteen or twenty-four pounder, but it was far 
heavier for the weight of shell it used than the short-range 
carronade. There was therefore a distinct temptation 
to arm ships with a lighter gun that would be more effec- 
tive at close range, and the mistake was not discovered 
till the greater skill of the American ships made it clear 
that the long gun, in a ship rightly handled, could prevent 
the short-range gun from coming into action at all. But 
in our own day the pride of length of reach goes with the 
heavier projectile. Not that the 12-inch guns of Inflexible 
and Invincible literally outranged the 8.2's of Von Spee, 
for the Germans have always mounted their guns, as we 
have seen, so that they can be elevated far more greatly 
than our own. It is quite possible therefore, that, speak- 
ing literally, Von Spee's 8.2's, as they were mounted, might 
have outranged Sir Doveton Sturdee's 12-inch. But at 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 227 

the extreme range of the 1 2-inch, it would be almost impos- 
sible for the 8.2 J s to hit on account of the extremely steep 
angle at which the shot falls, and, consequently, the high 
accuracy in range knowledge required and the improbabil- 
ity of the gun shooting with perfect precision at such 
extreme distances. But both in 18 12 and now, the basic 
idea behind seeking for a long-range decision is defensive. 
Captain Glossop opened up the range when Emden closed 
him and got the advantage of his heavy artillery. Ad- 
miral Sturdee kept the range as long as possible to save 
his ships from being hit. Captain Ellerton did his best 
to keep Cornwall and Glasgow out of Leipzig s reach. In 
all these cases there was a very obvious argument in 
favour of defensive tactics. Sydney, Glasgow and Corn- 
wall, Inflexible and Invincible were all at very great dis- 
tances from dockyards and possibilities of repairs. The 
two battle-cruisers were a considerable percentage of our 
total Dreadnought force. It was not a question of risking 
their destruction; it might at any moment be vital for 
them to be immediately ready for action. If possible, 
even the shortest period devoted to repairs and docking 
should be avoided. These considerations do not excuse 
defensive tactics; they may be said to have imposed them. 
But this should not blind us to the fact that they were 
defensive. 

And this leads to another interesting question. Von 
Muller in Emden began the action by trying to close 
Sydney. Von Spee turned at right angles at one o'clock 
to shorten the range. Nurnberg finally turned round to 
bring her broadside to bear on Kent, but she was too late. 
Leipzig never turned at all. In no case did the German 
commanders persist in seeking a short-range action. 
Cradock apparently did nothing to close Von Spee at 



228 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Coronel. What would have happened if Von Spee and 
Von Miiller had stuck to their resolution to close? In 
all these cases, as we have seen, the weaker side accepted 
the stronger's conditions. But it was not necessary that 
it should have been so. A resolute effort to close at full 
speed would no doubt throw a broadside of guns out of 
action, just as flight did. But would the stronger ships 
have run away had the weaker persisted in attacking? 
If they had held their course, there would have been a 
very considerable change of range, in itself a defensive 
element favouring the weaker ship. We can take it for 
granted that no effort to close would ultimately have 
saved the weaker ship in any case. But — and this seems 
to me to be the vital point — would not his chance of seri- 
ously damaging the stronger have been far higher? And 
is not this the one thing that should preoccupy the weaker 
force when compelled to engage ? 

Finally, two entirely new elements in naval fighting in 
our own time distinguish it from the fighting of the early 
days of last century. With ships dependent upon wind, 
if the chance of engaging was lost, it might never 
recur. 

In all Nelson's letters, memoranda, and sayings, he is 
haunted by the vital importance of swift decision and 
rapid and resolute action. The whole spirit behind the 
Trafalgar Memorandum is impatience of delay. When 
the Allied Fleet was seen, there was no time wasted in 
securing symmetrical formations or order. The Fleet 
was roughly grouped as Nelson intended it should be, and 
the only preliminary of action was not a race to get into 
station but a race to get to grips with the enemy. The 
cult of the close action was thus a direct outcome of the 
haunting uncertainty as to whether the fighting ship 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 229 

would be able to move or not. This has all been changed 
by steam. Admiral Sturdee, for instance, at 10:20, 11 :i^ 
and 12:20 knew perfectly well that he could have the Ger- 
mans in his grip and finish the thing off in five minutes 
whenever he liked. If he played with them as a cat plays 
with a mouse, it was because he knew that he had time 
on his side. But time will not always be on the side of 
what is for the moment the stronger force. The enemy 
may be heading for protection or may be expecting rein- 
forcements, or the light may suddenly fail altogether. In 
spite of steam, therefore, the desirability of a quick de- 
cision is really as paramount in modern conditions as in 
the old days. So that, had the problem of action never 
been complicated by the long-range torpedo, we ought, 
as soon as we began the cultivation of long-range gunnery, 
to have realized that it was useless to limit our skill to 
conditions in which the target ship and the firing ship 
were keeping steady courses. 

A further argument against closing the range in modern 
conditions has been put forward. Just as the change 
from sails to steam has helped the tactician of to-day, so 
the altered relation of the destructive power of the weapon 
and the resisting power of the ship has operated to his 
disadvantage. Lion, for instance, in the Dogger Bank 
affair, was knocked out by a chance shot that killed no 
men and did no vital injury to the ship at all. But it 
cut the feed pipes of an engine, and in two minutes the 
ship was disabled and for the purposes of that action, use- 
less. Only small damage could be done to sailing ships 
by a shot amongst the masts and rigging. And when to 
a single shot there is added the risk of a torpedo, it must 
be admitted that the arguments against closing are 
stronger to-day than they were. 



2 3 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

A POINT IN NAVAL ETHICS 

The conduct of Cradock and his captains at Coronel, 
of Von Miiller in Emden, and of the captains of Gneisenau, 
Leipzig, and Niirnberg, raises an interesting point in the 
ethics of war. Captain Glossop, it will be remembered, 
after driving Emden on to the rocks at Direction Island, 
had to return towards Keeling Island to look for the Em- 
den s tender. When he came back with certain prisoners 
on board, he appealed to Von Miiller to surrender. No 
reply was given, and the prisoners on board the Sydney 
informed Captain Glossop that no surrender would be 
made. It therefore became necessary to open fire again. 
This brought about the hauling down of the German flag. 
Gneisenau had lost 600 killed out of a crew of eight or nine 
hundred when, at 8 140, she hauled down her flag. Leipzig 
and Niirnberg were in a similar case. Bluecher was simi- 
larly defeated long before she was sunk. Both Good Hope 
and Monmouth were apparently out of action within five 
minutes of action beginning. Now in each instance it is 
obvious that fighting was carried on, and that therefore 
men were sacrificed, long after the ship was hopelessly 
beaten. But in many cases not only was the fighting 
carried on, so to speak, gratuitously, but the ship herself 
scuttled, thus ensuring the drowning of several wounded 
men and risking the drowning of a very large number of 
unwounded. In all, taking the Emden, Gneisenau, Nurn- 
berg, Leipzig, and Bluecher together, it is not improbable 
that over 1,000 lives were thus thrown away to no immedi- 
ately military purpose. The alternative was to surrender the 
ship. Why is it taken for granted that no ship, however fair- 
ly defeated in action, however hopeless further resistance, 
may not quite honourably yield herself a prize to the ene- 



BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 231 

my? It is an entirely new doctrine, unknown in an age 
surely not inferior in naval skill, in military spirit, or in 
chivalrous feeling. Does it date from the howl of execra- 
tion that went up in Russia when, after the flower of the 
Russian fleet had been defeated at Tsushima, Nebogatoff 
surrendered his archaic craft to the overwhelming force 
of the victors? 

So far as I know it was in that war that the great break 
with the old tradition was made. The old tradition, of 
course, was that a ship that had fought till it could fight 
no longer could be surrendered to a victorious enemy 
without shame. The records of the wars of a century 
ago abound in courts-martial on officers who in these cir- 
cumstances had yielded a beaten ship, and they were al- 
ways honourably acquitted, when it was shown that all 
that was possible had been done. It was evidently 
thought to be mere inhumanity to condemn a crew that 
had fought bravely to death by fire or drowning. Not 
that there are not grim stories that tell of a sterner resolu- 
tion, like that of Grenville in the Revenge. 

But on the whole the navy that had done more fighting 
than any other, and in the period of its existence when its 
fighting was most continuous, took what is at once a 
rational and a Christian view of these situations. Now 
it seems that war at sea dooms those who have fought 
unfalteringly to finish the business, when they can fight 
no longer, by a savage self-immolation. It is the only 
alternative to allowing the enemy the glory of a capture. 
Is this, after all, an intolerable humiliation? To find it 
so is a break with the old tradition and is not an innovation 
for the better. It sets up a pagan standard, and it is not 
the paganism of the stoic, but the unfeeling barbarism 
of the Choctaw. 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Heligoland Affair 

Towards the end of August, 1914, the submarines under 
Commodore Roger Keyes discovered a role of quite un- 
expected utility. Their immediate function had been to 
watch the approaches to the Channel, so as to stop any 
attempt by the German Fleet to interfere with the trans- 
port of the Expeditionary Force into France. In doing 
this, they found that they had exceptional opportunities 
for observing the enemy's destroyers and light craft, and, 
as soon as the safety of the transports seemed assured, 
they constituted themselves the most efficient scouts pos- 
sible. They soon found themselves in possession of an 
extensive knowledge of the habits of the Germans. It 
was this knowledge that led to the decision to sweep the 
North Sea up to Heligoland and cut off as many of the 
enemy's light craft, destroyers, and submarines as possible. 
The expedition included almost every form of fast ship at 
the Commander-in-Chief's disposal. First the submarines 
were told off to certain stations, presumably to be in a 
position to attack any reinforcements which might be 
sent out from Wilhelmshaven or Cuxhaven. Then, in the 
very earliest hours of the morning, the two light cruisers 
Arethusa and Fearless led a couple of flotillas of destroyers 
into the field of operations. The Arethusa flew the broad 
pennant of Commodore Tyrwhitt. The Fearless was 
commanded by Captain Blount. The two flotillas, with 
their cruiser leaders, swept round towards Heligoland in 

232 



THE HELIGOLAND AFFAIR 233 

an attempt to cut off the German cruisers and destroyers 
and drive them, if possible, to the westward. Some miles 
out to the west, Rear-Admiral Christian had the squadron 
of six cruisers of the Euryalus and Bacchante classes ready 
to intercept the chase. Commodore Goodenough, with a 
squadron of light cruisers, attended Vice-Admiral Beatty, 
with the battle-cruisers, at a prearranged rendezvous, ready 
to cut in to the rescue if there was any chance of Arethusa 
and Fearless being overpowered. 

The expedition obviously involved very great risks. It 
took place within a very few miles of bases in which the 
whole German Fleet of battleships and battle-cruisers was 
lying. It was plainly possible that the attempt to cut 
the German light cruisers off might end in luring out the 
whole Fleet, and one of the conditions contemplated was 
that Admiral Beatty, instead of administering the quietus 
to such German cruisers as survived the attentions of the 
two Commodores, might find himself condemned to a 
rearguard action with a squadron of German battleships. 
That he took this risk cheerfully, well understanding the 
kind of criticism that would meet him, if in the course of 
such an action he lost any of his ships, was the first indica- 
tion we got of the fine fighting temper of this Admiral. > 

Arethusa, Fearless, and the destroyers found themselves 
in action soon after seven o'clock with destroyers and tor- 
pedo-boats. Just before eight o'clock two German 
cruisers were drawn into the affray, and Arethusa had to 
fight both of them till 8:15, when one of them was drawn 
off into a separate action by Fearless, which in the ensuing 
fight became separated from the flagship. By 8:25 Are- 
thusa had wrecked the forebridge of one opponent with a 
6-inch projectile, and Fearless had driven off the other. 
Both were in full flight for Heligoland, which was now in 



234 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

sight. Commodore Tyrwhitt drew off his flotillas west- 
ward. He had suffered heavily in the fight. Of his whole 
battery only one 6-inch gun remained in action, while all 
the torpedo tubes were temporarily disabled. Lieutenant 
Westmacott, a gallant and distinguished young officer, 
had been killed at the Commodore's side. The ship had 
caught fire, and injuries had been received in the engines. 
Fearless seems now to have rejoined, and reported that 
the German destroyer Commodore's flagship had been 
sunk. By ten o'clock Commodore Roger Keyes, in the 
Lurcher, had got into action with the German light cruisers 
and signalled to the Areihusa for help. Both British 
cruisers then went to his assistance, but did not succeed 
in finding him. All Arethusds guns except two had mean- 
time been got back to working order. 

At eleven o'clock Areihusa and Fearless engaged their 
third enemy, this time a four-funnelled cruiser. Areihusa, 
it must be remembered, still had two guns out of action. 
The Commodore therefore ordered a torpedo attack, 
whereupon the enemy at once retreated, but ten minutes 
later he reappeared, when he was engaged once more with 
guns and torpedoes, but no torpedo hit. The Commodore 
notes an interesting feature of this cruiser's fire: "We 
received a very severe and most accurate fire from this 
cruiser. Salvo after salvo was falling between twenty 
and thirty yards short, but not a single shell struck." We 
shall find this happened several times in the different 
engagements. The Commodore continues: "Two tor- 
pedoes were also fired at us, being well directed but short." 

At this point the position was reported to Admiral 
Beatty. This cruiser was finally driven off by Fearless 
and Areihusa, and retreated badly damaged to Heligoland. 
Four minutes after, the Mainz was encountered. Are* 




235 



236 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

thusa, Fearless, and the destroyers engaged her for five- 
and-twenty minutes, and when she was in a sinking con- 
dition Commodore Goodenough's squadron came on the 
scene and finished her off. Arethusa then got into action 
with a large four-funnelled cruiser at long range, but re- 
ceived no hits herself, and was not able to see that she 
made any. 

It was now 12:15. Fearless and the first flotilla had 
already been ordered home by the Commodore. The 
intervention of the battle-cruisers was very rapid and 
decisive. The four-funnelled cruiser that had been the 
last to engage Arethusa was soon cut off* and attacked, 
and within twenty minutes a second cruiser crossed the 
Lions path. She was going full speed, probably twenty- 
five knots, and at right angles to Lion, who was steaming 
twenty-eight. But both Lions salvoes took effect, a 
piece of shooting which the Vice-Admiral very rightly 
calls most creditable to the gunnery of his ship. The 
change of range must have been 900 yards a minute. I 
know of no parallel to this feat, though it must be remem- 
bered that the range was short. Lions course was now 
taking her towards known mine-fields, and the Vice- 
Admiral very properly judged that the time had come 
to withdraw. He proceeded to dispose of the cruiser he 
first attacked — which turned out to be Kbln — before doing 
so. 

The expedition had been a complete success. Three 
German cruisers had been sunk and one destroyer. Three 
other cruisers had been gravely damaged, and many of 
the German destroyers had been hit also. Our losses in 
men were small, and we lost no ships at all. Arethusa had 
perhaps suffered most, though some of the destroyers had 
been pretty roughly handled. But all got safely home, and 



THE HELIGOLAND AFFAIR 237 

none were so injured but that in a very few days or weeks 
they were fit again for service. 

The affair was in every respect well conceived and brilli- 
antly carried out. The two essential matters were to 
begin by employing a force sufficiently weak to tempt the 
enemy to come out, and yet not so small nor so slow a 
force as to risk being overwhelmed. If something like 
a general action amongst the small craft could be brought 
about, the plan was to creep up with a more powerful 
squadron in readiness to rescue the van, if rescue were 
necessary, at any rate to secure the final and immediate 
destruction of as many of the enemy's ships as possible. 
But there was no squadron fighting at all. Goodenough's 
light cruisers, and Beatty's battle-cruisers did, no doubt, 
keep in formation, but they found no formed enemy. 
There were no obvious tactical lessons. 

Perhaps the most interesting part of the business is to 
be found not in what did happen, but in what did not. 
The German Commander-in-Chief must have known long 
before eight o'clock in the morning that fighting was going 
forward within five-and-twenty or thirty miles of him. 
He could have got to the scene with his whole force be- 
fore ten o'clock. But beyond sending in a few more light 
cruisers and U-boats, he appears to have done nothing 
either to rescue his own ships or to attempt to cut off and 
sink ours. It is more than probable that he suspected 
the trap that was indeed laid for him. But the oppor- 
tunity had been given of appearing in the North Sea in 
force, and the opportunity was not taken. It seemed 
very clear to most observers after this that the German 
Fleet would not willingly seek a general action, or even 
risk a partial action in the North Sea, except under con- 
ditions entirely of their own choosing. It seemed obvious 



238 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

that if such action was not sought in the early days of the 
war, it certainly would not be sought later, when the bal- 
ance of naval power would be turning increasingly against 
them. 

The battle-cruisers in this action had some exciting 
adventures with submarines. They had, for instance, to 
wait for some hours before the moment came for their 
intervention, and while at the rendezvous they were re- 
peatedly attacked by them. From the Vice-Admiral's 
despatch, it would appear that this attack was frustrated 
partly by rapid manoeuvring, partly by sending destroyers 
to drive the U-boats off. Later in the day, when the 
squadron was engaged in sinking Koln and Ariadne, it 
was once more attacked by submarines, and Queen Mary 
(Captain W. R. Hall) turned his ship, not to avoid the sub- 
marine, but its torpedo, which was seen approaching. We 
got very early warning, therefore, of the truth of the pro- 
phecy that the first result of the employment of the tor- 
pedo in fleet actions would be compulsory movements of 
the attacked ships. It was a prompt reminder that if 
manoeuvring meant loss of artillery efficiency, that the 
enemy had it in his power, by submarine and destroyer 
onslaughts, to extinguish our gunfire from time to 
time. 

Alone of the actions which have taken place in this war, 
the firing was all within comparatively short range. Six 
thousand yards was the limit of visibility. There are 
not sufficient data to judge whether the British gunnery 
was greatly superior to the German. But Commodore 
Tyrwhitt draws attention to a fact, already familiar to us, 
viz. that a German cruiser can send salvo after salvo, all 
within a few yards of the target, without securing a hit. 
It proved later to be a feature common to all engagements. 




239 



2 4 o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

THE NORTH SEA 

The engagement off Heligoland had no successor until 
the spring of 1916, when the attack on the island of Sylt 
took place. A second sweep some days after the first was 
made in the same waters, but nothing of the enemy was 
seen. Whether such sweeps were repeatedly made in 191 5 
without the public being informed, we do not know. By 
this I do not imply that no incursions into German waters 
were made — I mean only that we heard of none, and pre- 
sumably that, if any were made, there was no result. 

But two points in this connection may be borne in 
mind. The affair off Heligoland took place on August 28, 
1914. After losing three cruisers by exposing them to Sir 
David Beatty's and Commodore Goodenough's forces, the 
Germans managed their affairs very differently. Perhaps 
from this time on no German craft ventured into the North 
Sea at all, except when the whole fleet came out in force. 
And they did not come out in force very often, nor at all, 
except at night or when the weather was clear enough for 
the fleet's scouts, either in the form of airships, destroyers, 
or cruisers, to give long warning of the presence of danger. 
The two raiding expeditions and Von Hipper's excursion 
of January 28 are undertakings of a very different char- 
acter. 

The Bombardments. — Whatever the explanation, there 
was no more fighting in home waters for exactly five months, 
but the Germans made two expeditions in force right 
across to the English shores. Early in November a squad- 
ron of cruisers appeared off Yarmouth, fired at the Halcyon, 
let off some rounds, without doing any damage, on the 
town, and retreated precipitately, dropping mines as they 
went. A British submarine unfortunately ran foul of 



THE HELIGOLAND AFFAIR 241 

one of these and was lost with all hands at once. Halcyon, 
perhaps the smallest and least formidable vessel that ever 
crept into the "Navy List", engaged the enemy imper- 
turbably when they fled, losing one man from a fragment 
of shell, though practically unhurt herself. Private letters 
speak of salvoes falling short and over in the most discon- 
certing manner, and of the ship being so drenched with 
water as to be in danger of foundering. The old story of the 
very accurate, but ineffective, fire of the German ships, 
was thus repeated. But no official or detailed information 
on this subject has been given. In December a second 
and much more successful raid was made. Scarborough, 
the Hartlepools, and Whitby were bombarded by a squad- 
ron, whose composition was never officially announced. 
The American papers have printed letters from Germany 
stating that the Von der Tann and Moltke, the Yorck and 
the Bluecher, with smaller cruisers, constituted the force. 
The visitors to Hartlepool experienced the hospitality of 
that flourishing port in its warmest form. The garrison 
artillery dealt faithfully with Von der Tann, and her dis- 
appearance was credibly attributed to injuries sustained 
in a collison, which damage to her steering gear, effected by 
the north country gunners, had prevented her evading. 
The squadron that bombarded Yarmouth made off in the 
thick weather. It was obvious from the terms in which 
the Admiralty announced the fact that the bombardment 
had taken place that it was considered quite certain that 
they could not escape a second time. Unfortunately, 
however, they did; but they lost the Yorck by a German 
mine when re-entering harbour. The details of the ar- 
rangements made for anticipating them were quite pro- 
perly kept secret, but it became known that a sudden fog 
explained why these arrangements did not succeed. 



242 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Both in the case of the Yarmouth and the Scarborough 
raids the enemy appeared at daylight. He had evidently 
crossed the North Sea during the night. From Whitby 
to the mine-fields off Heligoland is about 275 miles, a dis- 
tance which each of the ships employed could cover quite 
comfortably in thirteen or fourteen hours. Had the 
squadron left Heligoland an hour before dark it could have 
fetched the English coast by daylight, hardly using more 
than three-quarter power. If it started for home at 8:30 
it would have nine hours of daylight before it. At 
twenty-five knots 225 miles could be covered. This 
would bring them within fifty or sixty miles of the mine- 
fields, and it is probable that at some greater distance 
from Heligoland than this a rendezvous for submarines 
and destroyers had been arranged. 

These raids were doubtless planned on the theory that 
the battle-cruiser fleet would be based on some point so 
far north that no difference in speed between the British 
and German ships would enable the former to overtake 
them before the mine-fields, or at least the waiting sub- 
marines and destroyers were met. And it may well have 
been hoped that an exasperated English Admiral, if he 
came up with them then, would not willingly give up the 
hope of an engagement. It may have seemed a very 
feasible operation to draw him either on to the mines them- 
selves or within range of the submarines. It is, it seems 
to me, not difficult to reconstruct the German plan for 
both the Yarmouth and the Whitby raids. 

It has often been pointed out — and with perfect justice 
— that in shelling open and undefended towns, and even 
a commercial port like Hartlepool that did have a 6-inch 
gun or two to defend it, the Germans were employing 
their fleet to no immediate military purpose whatever. 



THE HELIGOLAND AFFAIR 243 

It has been suggested that there might have been the very 
excellent military object of keeping our battle-cruisers 
in home waters and so securing Von Spee a free hand 
abroad. What has not been so often insisted on is that 
had there been any military centre, fort, or magazine 
worth attack, the fugitive character of the bombardments 
robbed them of any probable hope of hitting it. 

There have been ample experiences during this war 
of ships bombarding distant objects on shore. And it is 
finally proved to be one of the most difficult operations 
conceivable. The case of the Koenigsberg was altogether 
exceptional. And many as were the difficulties to be 
faced in that action, there was yet this favourable element 
present, that the people in the aeroplanes could not 
possibly make any mistake as to the target that was to be 
bombarded, nor from the fact that it was a small ship 
lying in a considerable expanse of water could the ob- 
servers, spotting all the different rounds, fail to give to 
the fire-control parties on board very accurate indications 
how to correct their sights for the next round. At the 
Dardanelles when isolated forts were attacked on a point 
on land, where one ship could lie off nearly at right angles 
to the line of fire and mark the fall of shot and the firing 
ship correct the fire for line, exact corrections of the same 
character as at the Rufigi were made possible. But when 
it came to correcting the fire by captive balloons and air- 
craft, when forts and gun positions had to be picked out 
in the folds of the hills, and still more where forts had to 
be engaged with no other corrections than the men in the 
control tops of the firing ship could supply, it became 
practically impossible to ensure sustained effective firing. 

When, therefore, the German ships lay off Lowestoft, 
Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough and bombarded 



244 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

for half an hour or so without any attempt to select 
particular targets, or if such were selected, to adopt any 
scientific means of directing their fire on to them, it became 
perfectly clear that their military object was about as 
defined as that of midnight bombing raids with Zeppelins. 
One is driven to the conclusion, therefore, that the primary 
object of these adventures was mere frightfulness, and 
that perhaps the secondary object was to draw the pur- 
suing ships into some catastrophic trap. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The Action off the Dogger Bank 

The two bombardments of the early winter of 1 914 have 
been variously explained. They may have been meant to 
force us to keep our main forces concentrated: or simply 
to cheer up the Germans and depress our people. Both 
were organized so that the German squadron could start 
its race for home within an hour of daybreak. 

It is more difficult, however, to explain the events of 
January 28. The precise point where Sir David Beatty 
encountered Admiral von Hipper's fleet has not been 
authoritatively made known, but it seems to have been 
on the northeastern edge of the Dogger Bank. They 
were encountered at seven o'clock in the morning. Von 
Hipper's presence at this point cannot, then, explain his 
being out on an expedition analogous to the former two. 
And I have some difficulty in understanding exactly why 
he took this risk. It is, of course, possible the Germans 
had had reports to the effect that the North Sea was clear 
on the 27th. It may have been so reported on several 
occasions, and it is possible that aircraft had verified this 
fact, when the weather permitted of their employment 
for this purpose. The Germans, who are fond of jump- 
ing to conclusions on very insufficient premises, may 
have exaggerated the effect of their submarine campaign 
on British dispositions. We know, for instance, that the 
alarm undoubtedly felt by the public in September and 
October was very greatly exaggerated in the German press, 

245 



246 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

At any rate, immediately after the battle of the Falkland 
Islands a good deal of rodomontade appeared about the 
British being driven from the North Sea, and the German 
seamen may have felt bound to act as if this rodomontade 
were true. Or a much simpler explanation may suffice. 
Von Hipper may have come out to look for the British 
ships and draw them into prepared positions and to engage 
them on the German terms. The defeat of Von Spee may 
have made a naval demonstration necessary. 

Whatever the explanation of the Germans being where 
they were, it was only by mere chance that they escaped 
annihilation. Had Sir David Beatty — as it might well 
have happened — been to the east of them when they were 
sighted, not a single German ship would ever have got 
home. It was unlucky, too, that his squadron was 
temporarily deprived of the services of the Queen Mary. 
A fourth ship of a speed superior to that of Lion, Tiger, 
and Princess Royal, and armed like them with 13.5 guns 
might have made the whole difference in the conditions 
in which the light took place. Besides, Queen Mary was 
much the best gunnery ship in the Fleet. Once more, 
then, the Germans had quite exceptional luck upon their 
side. 

The moment Von Hipper's scouting cruisers found 
themselves in contact with Commodore Goodenough's 
squadron the German battle-cruisers turned and made 
straight for home at top speed. They had a fourteen- 
miles' start — say, six miles beyond effective gun range — 
of the British squadron, and Admiral Beatty settled down 
at once to a stern chase at top speed. The chase began 
in earnest at 7:30, the Germans, fourteen miles ahead, 
steering S.E., the British ships on a course parallel to 
them, the German ships bearing about twenty degrees 



THE DOGGER BANK 247 

on the port bow. In an hour and twenty minutes the 
range had been closed from 28,000 yards to 20,000. Von 
Hipper was evidently regulating the speed of his squadron 
by that of the slowest ship, Bluecher. Admiral Beatty 
disposed of his fleet in a line of bearing, so that there should 
be a minimum of smoke interference, and the flagship 
opened fire with single shots to test the range. In ten 
minutes her first hit was made on the Bluecher which was 
the last in the German line. Tiger then opened on the 
Bluecher, and Lion shifted to No. 3, of which the range 
was 18,000 yards. At a quarter past nine the enemy 
opened fire. Soon after nine, Princess Royal came into 
action, took on Bluecher, while Tiger took No. 3 and Lion 
No. 1. When New Zealand came within range, Bluecher 
was passed on to her. This was at about 9:35. So early 
as a quarter to ten the Bluecher showed signs of heavy 
punishment, and the first and third ships of the enemy 
were both on fire. Lion was engaging the first ship, 
Princess Royal the third, New Zealand the Bluecher, while 
Tiger alternated between the same target as the Lion 
and No. 4. For some reason not explained the second 
ship in the German line does not appear to have been 
engaged at all. Just before this the Germans attempted 
a diversion by sending the destroyers to attack. Meteor 
(Captain Mead), with a division of the British destroyers, 
was then sent ahead to drive off* the enemy, and this 
apparently was done with success. Shortly afterwards 
the enemy destroyers got between the battle-cruisers 
and the British squadron and raised huge volumes of 
smoke, so as to foul the range. Under cover of this the 
enemy changed course to the northward. The battle- 
cruisers then formed a new line of bearing, N.N.W., and 
were ordered to proceed at their utmost speed. A second 



248 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

attempt of the enemy's destroyers to attack the British 
squadron was foiled by the fire of Lion and Tiger. 

The chase continued on these lines more or less for the 
next hour, by which time the Bluecher had dropped very 
much astern and had hauled away to the North. She was 
listing heavily, was burning fiercely, and seemed to be 
defeated. Sir David Beatty thereupon ordered Indomit- 
able to finish her off", and one infers from this, the first 
mention of Indomitable, that she had been unable to keep 
pace with New Zealand, Princess Royal, Tiger, and Lion, 
and therefore would not be able to assist in the pursuit 
of the enemy battle-cruisers. 

The range by this time must have been very much 
reduced. If between 7 130 and 9 30 a gain of 10,000 yards, 
or 5,000 yards an hour, had been made, between 9 30 and 
10:45 a further gain of 6,250 yards should have been 
possible, if the conditions had remained the same. But 
with Bluecher beaten, the German battle-cruisers could 
honourably think of themselves alone. Unless their speed 
had been reduced by our fire, while we ought to have 
gained, we should hardly have caught up so much as in 
the first hour and a half. But there had, besides, been 
two destroyer attacks threatened or made by the enemy, 
one apparently at about twenty minutes to ten, and one 
at some time between then and 10:40. It is highly 
probable that each of these attacks caused the British 
squadron to change course, and we know that before 10:45 
the stations had been altered. Each of these three things 
may have prevented some gain. Still, on the analogy 
of what had happened in the first two hours, we must 
suppose the range at this period to have been at most 
about 13,000 yards. At six minutes to eleven the action 
had reached the first rendezvous of the German sub- 







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250 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

marines. They were reported to and then seen by the 
Admiral on his starboard bow, whereupon the squadron 
was turned to port to avoid them. Very few minutes 
after this the Lion was disabled. 

What happened from this point is not clear. We know 
that as Sir David stopped he signalled to Tiger, Princess 
Royal, and New Zealand to close on and attack the enemy. 
Bluecher had been allotted to the Indomitable some twenty 
minutes before. The squadron passed from Admiral 
Beatty's command to that of Rear-Admiral Sir Archibald 
Moore. In a very few minutes it was, of course, out of 
sight of the Vice-Admiral himself. Sir David called a 
destroyer alongside and followed at the best pace he could 
and, soon after midday, found the squadron returning 
after breaking off the pursuit some seventy miles from 
Heligoland. Bluecher had been destroyed, but the three 
battle-cruisers had escaped. Of the determining factors 
in these proceedings we know little. Such data as there 
are will be examined in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The Dogger Bank II 

There are several matters of technical and general in- 
terest to be noted about this action. In the two torpedo 
attacks by destroyers on Sir David Beatty's fleet, we see 
the first employment of this weapon for purely defensive 
purposes in a fleet action. It is defensive, not because 
the torpedo is certain to hit, and therefore to remove one 
of the pursuing enemy, but because if shoals of torpedoes 
are fired at a squadron, it will almost certainly be con- 
sidered so serious a threat as to make a change of course 
compulsory. This is of double value to the weaker and 
retreating force. By compelling the firing ships to 
manoeuvre, the efficiency of the fire control of their guns 
may be seriously upset, and hence their fire lose all accu- 
racy and effect. To impose a manoeuvre, then, is to 
secure a respite from the pursuers' fire. But it does 
something more. By driving the pursuer off" his course 
he is thrown back in the race, and his guns therefore kept 
at a greater distance. If the pursuer has then to start 
finding the range, and perhaps a new course and speed 
of the enemy, all over again, an appreciable period of time 
must elapse before his fire once more becomes accurate. 
And if he is prevented closing, the increase of accuracy, 
which shorter range would give, is denied him. Apart 
altogether, then, from quite good chances of a torpedo hit- 
ting, the evolution is of the utmost moment to the inferior 
force. It was employed in this action for the first time. 

251 



252 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Again, for the first time we find the destroyers getting 
between the pursuing ships and the chase, and creating a 
smoke screen to embarrass the pursuers' aiming and fire 
control. Finally, we find that Von Hipper has directed 
his flight to a prearranged point, where certainly sub- 
marines had been gathered and possibly mine-fields had 
been laid. This of course was a contingency that had 
always been foreseen. In an article published in the 
Westminster Gazette a week or two before the action, I 
dealt with Von Tirpitz's remark, that "the German Fleet 
were perfectly willing to fight the English, if England 
would give them the opportunity," and interpreted 
this to mean, that the Germans would be willing to fight 
if they had such a choice of ground and position as would 
give them some equivalent for their inferior numbers. 
And writing at that time, I naturally set out what may 
be called the general view of North Sea strategy. No 
good purpose would have been served by questioning it — 
even if such questioning had been permitted. Nor, in 
view of the very narrow margin of superiority that we 
possessed in capital ships, had I any wish to question it. 

I began with the supposition that the enemy might 
attempt, on a big scale, exactly what, on a much smaller 
scale, we ourselves had attempted in the Bight of 
Heligoland five months before. 

"Assuming," I said, "that it is a professed German 
object to draw a portion of the English Fleet into a 
situation where it can be advantageously engaged, what 
would be the natural course for them to pursue? The 
first and perhaps the simplest form of ruse would be to 
dangle a squadron before the English Fleet, so that our 
fastest units should be drawn away from their supports, 
and enticed within reach of a superior German force. 



THE DOGGER BANK II 253 

If we suppose the Scarborough raid to be carried out by a 
squadron used for this purpose, we must look upon that 
episode not merely as an example of Germany practising 
its much-loved frightfulness, but as an exercise in wiliness 
as well. That the Admiralty had taken every step it 
could think of to catch and destroy this squadron, we may 
safely infer from the character of the communications 
made to us. The measures adopted were, we also know, 
frustrated by the thick weather, so that no engagement 
actually took place. Is it not highly probable that the 
Germans, not knowing the character of the English 
counter-stroke, may have concluded that our failure to 
bring their squadron to action was brought about quite 
as much by prudence as by ill-luck? At any rate, it is 
rather a curious phenomenon that the German papers 
during the last two weeks have been filled with the most 
furious articles descanting upon the pusillanimity of the 
British Fleet. To our eyes such charges, of course, 
seem absurd, nor when we know how welcome the appear- 
ance of the German Fleet in force would be to Admiral 
Jellicoe and his gallant comrades can we conceive any sane 
man using such language; but if we interpret this as the 
expression of disappointed hopes, as evidence of the failure 
of a plan to catch a portion of our Fleet, a reasonable 
explanation of what is otherwise merely nonsense is 
afforded. 

"The average layman probably supposes that a fleet 
action between the English Grand Fleet and the German 
High Seas Fleet would be fought through on the lines of 
previous engagements in this war, and of the two naval 
battles of the Russo-Japanese war. They would expect 
the contest to be an artillery fight in which superior 
skill in the use of guns, if such superiority existed on either 



254 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

side, would be decisive; and if equality of skill existed, 
that victory would go to the side possessing a superior 
number of guns of superior power. But other naval 
weapons have advanced enormously in the last eight 
years. We not only have torpedoes that can run five 
and six miles with far greater accuracy and certainty 
than the old torpedo could go a third of this distance, 
but we know that Germany — almost alone amongst 
nations — has carried the art and practice of sowing mines 
to a point hitherto not dreamt of. When the first raid 
was made on Yarmouth, it will be remembered that the 
German ships retreated from a British submarine, and 
that the submarine ran into and was blown up and sunk 
by a mine left by the German ship in its wake. Again, 
after the North-Eastern raid, many ships — some author- 
ities say over a dozen — were blown up by running into 
German mines left in the waters which the raiders had 
been through. The German naval leaders are perfectly 
aware that in modern capital ships they have an inferiority 
of numbers, and that gun for gun their artillery force is 
inferior to ours in an even greater degree. It is certain, 
therefore, that In thinking out the conditions in which they 
would have to fight an English fleet they are fully deter- 
mined to use all other means that can possibly turn the 
scale 1 of superiority to their side. Just as they have relied 
on the torpedo and the mine to diminish the general 
strength of the English Fleet, while it was engaged in the 
watch and ward of the North Sea, so as to redress the 
balance before the time for a naval action arrived; so, 
too, they have counted, when actually in action, on 
crippling and destroying English ships by mines and 
torpedoes, so that the artillery preponderance may finally 
be theirs. If we suppose that the German admirals have 



THE DOGGER BANK II 255 

really thought out this problem, and we must suppose 
this, it is not difficult to see that with a fast advance 
battle-cruiser squadron engaged in mine laying, the 
problem of so handling a fleet as to pursue and cut off this 
squadron without crossing its wake must be extremely 
intricate and difficult. If further we imagine that this 
fast squadron has drawn the hostile squadron towards 
its own waters, where mine-fields unknown to us have 
been laid, we have not only the problem of the mines left 
in the wake of the enemy, but the further difficulty of 
there being prepared traps, so to speak, lying across the 
path which the attacking squadron would most naturally 
take. If we imagine the problem still further complicated 
by an attack on a battleship line by flotillas of fast de- 
stroyers firing high-speed, long-range torpedoes, to inter- 
sect the course that that squadron is taking, we have the 
third element of confusion. It does not need much 
imagination then to see that with mines actually dropped 
during the manoeuvres that lead up to or form part of the 
battle, with mine-fields scattered over the chosen battle- 
field, and with the possibility of a battle fleet being 
rendered liable at the shortest notice to a massed attack 
of long-range torpedo fire, a naval battle will be a totally 
different affair from the comparatively simple operations 
that took place in the engagement of August 10, or at the 
battle of Tsushima. 

"Such conditions as these demand extraordinary 
sagacity on the part not only of the Commander-in-chief, 
but of all the squadron commanders under him. It 
requires insistent vigilance; but then, for that matter, 
such vigilance is the daily routine of the Navy always. 
Finally, it makes demands on the art of gunnery of which 
we have hitherto had no practical experience at all. For 



256 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

reasons that hardly need discussion, all practice gunnery- 
is carried out in conditions almost ludicrously unlike war, 
and quite absurdly unlike the kind of naval engagement 
that seems to me probable. The principal difference 
between the two is that it is impossible to practise with 
the big guns at a fast target. There is no way of man- 
oeuvring and running a target at high speed unless it is 
propelled by its own power, and that power is kept 
supplied and is got by human agents, and obviously you 
cannot fire at a ship which is full of people. And 
when you fire at a towed target the differences are, first, 
that no target can be towed beyond perhaps a third 
of a battleship's speed, and next, that it cannot be 
manoeuvred as a ship can. Lastly, the firing ship, so 
far as I am aware, is never called upon to fire while 
executing the kind of manoeuvres, or subject to the 
kind of limitations, that would be incident to a modern 
battle. 

"To sum up my argument. The present indications 
are that Germany, carrying out its previously expressed 
intentions, has made a first, and is now aiming at getting 
the information for a second, attempt to draw the English 
Fleet into fighting on ground which she can mine before 
we are drawn on to it, and to fight in conditions in which 
she can use a fast advance squadron to compel our ships 
to adopt certain manoeuvres, and to turn that advance 
squadron into mine-layers, so as to limit our movements 
or make them exceedingly perilous. She will try to make 
the battlefields as close as she can to her own ports, both 
so as to facilitate the preliminary preparation by mines 
and to surprise us with unexpected torpedo attacks. I 
interpret the fulminations of Captain Persius and others 
as expressions of their anger at the failure of their first 



THE DOGGER BANK II 257 

attempt, and I interpret the air raids as attempts to get 
information for making a second. 

"We can, I am sure, rely upon Sir John Jellicoe being 
at no point inferior to his enemy, either in wiliness or in 
resources. It is to be remembered that, so far as we are 
concerned, much as we should like to have all anxiety 
settled by hearing of the definite destruction of the German 
Fleet, its continued existence is nevertheless perfectly 
innocuous, so long as it is unable to affect the transporting 
of our troops or the conduct of our trade. 19 

The foregoing article, I think, fairly represents what the 
Spectator, in referring to it, called the case for "naval 
patience." But it did not mean, nor was it intended to 
mean, that it would be improper in any circumstances for 
a British ship to face any risks from torpedoes and mines, 
nor that to fight the Germans in their own waters was 
necessarily the same thing as fighting them on their own 
terms. It is indeed clear that I expected the British 
commanders to be more their equal to circumventing 
the enemy's ingenuity. But no resource can rob war of 
risk— and if it were made a working principle that risks 
from torpedoes and mines were never to be faced, then 
the clearing of the British Fleet out of the North Sea 
would be a very simple process. It would only be necessary 
for the enemy to send out a score or so of submarines to 
advance in line abreast when, ex hypothesis the Fleet would 
have no choice but incontinent flight. 

My object was first to show the public that the problem 
of the naval engagement was far more complicated than 
was generally supposed, and that the ingenuity, resource, 
and vigilance of the Admiral in command would be taxed. 
It seemed to me important that a sympathetic understand- 
ing of these anxieties should be created in the public mind. 



258 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Next, however, it was not less important to discount any 
extravagant expectation in the matter of naval gunnery. 
We had not at that time any full accounts of the Battle 
of the Falkland Islands; but it seemed clear that, in this 
respect, the performance of the two battle-cruisers had 
been disappointing. If in the North Sea an action was 
to be fought in poor light, with the ships made to man- 
oeuvre by torpedo attack and the enemy from time to 
time veiled in smoke screens, it seemed quite certain that 
a task would be set to the service fire-control with which 
it would be quite unable to deal. 

And if these were the weaknesses of our fire-control, 
it was further highly desirable to keep before our eyes 
the certainty that, if the opportunity arose and a fleet 
action, intended to be decisive and pushed to a decision, 
took place, we were almost bound to lose ships by tor- 
pedoes and mines. At any rate, it seemed as if such a 
risk must be run if our own gunfire was to be made 
effective. And for such losses the public should be pre- 
pared. 

This being the situation, it seems to me most unfortu- 
nate that the Admiralty followed the course they did in 
communicating their various accounts of this action to us. 
For there were three accounts given, and no two of the 
three agreed as to the reason why the pursuit was broken 
off! For two days we were not told that Lion was injured, 
and for four days were ignorant of the fact that the control 
of the British Fleet had passed out of Sir David Beatty's 
hands some time before the action was ended. It was not 
till March 3 — that is, five weeks after the action — that 
we were told the name of the officer on whom command 
had devolved when Lion fell out of line ! This suppression 
was really extraordinary. To be mentioned in despatches 



THE DOGGER BANK II 259 

had always been an acknowledged honour. To be 
ignored was a new form of distinction. How was the 
public to take so singular an omission? Had it ever 
happened before that an officer had been in command of a 
fleet at so grave a crisis and the fact of his being in com- 
mand suppressed in announcing the fact of the engage- 
ment? No one quite knew how to take it. The dis- 
crepancies in the communiques are worth noting. In 
the first, of January 25, was this curiously worded 
paragraph: 

"A well-contested running fight ensued. Shortly after 
one o'clock Bluecher, which had previously fallen out of 
the line, capsized and sank. Admiral Beatty reports 
that two other German battle-cruisers were seriously 
damaged. They were, however, able to continue their 
flight, and reached an area where dangers from German 
submarines and mines prevented further pursuit." 

Did whoever drafted this statement suppose that the 
Bluecher was a battle-cruiser? We are now, however, 
more concerned with the reasons given for breaking off 
the action. An area was reached where "dangers from 
German submarines and mines prevented further pursuit." 
The communique of January 27 was silent on this point. 
On the 28th was published what purported to be "a 
preliminary telegraphic report received from the Vice- 
Admiral." The paragraph dealing with this matter is as 
follows : 

"Through the damage to Lions feed-tank by an 
unfortunate chance shot, we were undoubtedly deprived 
of a greater victory. The presence of the enemy's sub- 
marines subsequently necessitated the action being broken 
off." 

In this statement the excuse of mines is dropped. 



2 6o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

In the despatch published on March 3 the end of the action 
is treated by the Vice-Admiral as follows: 

"At 11 :20 I called the Attack alongside, shifted my flag 
to her at about 11 135. I proceeded at the utmost speed 
to rejoin the squadron, and met them at noon retiring 
north-northwest. I boarded and hoisted my flag in 
Princess Royal at about 12:20, when Captain Brock 
acquainted me with what had occurred since Lion fell out 
of line, namely, that Bluecher had sunk, and that the 
enemy battle-cruisers had continued their course to east- 
ward in a considerably damaged condition. " 

Here observe no mention was made of submarines 
necessitating the action being broken off, nor of an area 
being reached where dangers from submarines and mines 
prevented further pursuit. The whole incident is passed 
by the Vice-Admiral without comment, unless indeed 
the phrase about the accident to the Lion, in the tele- 
graphic report, is a comment. Did the Vice-Admiral 
imply that had he remained in command he would have 
seen to it that his specific orders — viz. that Indomitable 
should settle Bluecher and the other ships pursue the 
battle-cruisers — were carried out? 

A very unfortunate situation resulted from these 
reticences and contradictions. Naval writers in America 
were naturally enough amazed by the statement attributed 
to Admiral Beatty in the telegraphic report, for, if the 
presence of submarines could stop pursuit, could not 
submarines drive the British Fleet off the sea? These 
authors naturally expressed extreme astonishment that 
an admiral capable of breaking off action in these condi- 
tions, and publicly acknowledging so egregious a blunder, 
was not at once brought to court-martial. No one in his 
senses could have supposed that Sir David Beatty, who 



THE DOGGER BANK II 261 

dealt with submarines without the least concern in the 
affair of Heligoland and earlier in the day on January 28, 
could possibly have accepted the dictum that the pre- 
sence of a German submarine would justify pursuit having 
been broken off. It was then quite evident that the 
quotation from the Vice-Admiral's telegraphic report 
could not have represented the Vice-Admiral's opinion on 
a point of warlike doctrine. What the actual facts of 
the case were, we do not to this day know. Rear-Admiral 
Moore did not continue long in Sir David Beatty's squad- 
ron after this, but there was no court-martial nor any 
public expression of the Admiralty's opinion by way of 
approval or disapproval of his proceedings. In a speech 
made a month after the action in the House of Commons, 
Mr. Churchill passed over the fact that the action had 
not been fought out, as if such a thing was of no excep- 
tional importance or interest whatever. Soon afterward it 
became known that the Rear-Admiral in question had got 
another and very important command elsewhere, so that 
it became plain that his conduct had not met with their 
Lordships' reprobation. 

War in modern conditions undoubtedly makes it 
exceedingly important to keep the enemy as far as possible 
in ignorance of a great many things. It imposes too a 
continuous strain upon practically the whole personnel of 
the Navy, and these two things taken together have been 
quoted to explain why the old rule of holding a public court- 
martial on the captain of every ship that was lost, or on 
every individual officer whose action in battle gave rise to 
uncertainty or question, has virtually been abrogated. 
But it is doubtful whether the Navy has not lost more by 
the abandonment of this wholesome practice than the 
enemy could have gained by its Spartan application. 



262 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

This point came in for a good deal of public discussion 
at the beginning of 191 5, and I venture to quote a con- 
tribution to it. Looking back upon this controversy, 
it is easy enough to see now wherein lay the chief dis- 
advantage of the suppression of courts-martial. There 
was no general staff at the Admiralty, representative of 
the best Service opinion, and, deprived of court-martial, 
the Navy had no means of expressing a corporate judg- 
ment on the vital issues as they arose. The doctrine with 
regard to torpedo risk, which seems to have been acted on 
at the close of this action, was evidently one which either 
the Admiralty had laid down, or at least accepted as 
correct. Could it have been referred to the corporate 
judgment of the Service and had that judgment not 
endorsed it, the history of the war might have been alto- 
gether different. 

"Mr. Churchill's speech in the official reports is entitled 
' British Command of the Sea: Admiralty Organization.' 
It would have been as well if this description had been 
given out before the speech was made, for, as it happened, 
many thought it was intended as a survey of the first epoch 
of the war and were disappointed that, in so eloquent 
and forceful a review, there was hardly a word of tribute 
to the incomparable services of our officers and men. 
There was lavish praise of the generosity of the House of 
Commons; of the foresight of Lord Fisher; of the excellence 
of the Admiralty's preparedness at every point; of the 
amazing scale and success of the provisioning with coal 
and supplies of a vast fleet always at sea; of the astonishing 
perfection of the work of the engineering branch. But 
there was singularly little of the work of the fighting men. 
The officers were dismissed simply as 'painstaking.' No 
doubt the tribute will be made at another time. Is there 



THE DOGGER BANK II 263 

any time, however, which is not the right time for ac- 
knowledging these services? On Tuesday we learned that 
between 300 and 400 officers have died for us — and over 
6,000 men. Is it gracious to postpone their eulogy? 
And the absence of eulogy was emphasized by the forceful 
manner in which the First Lord asked that he and his 
colleagues should be entrusted with the most absolute 
and dictatorial powers. Indeed, he excused the departure 
from the Service custom of holding courts-martial when- 
ever a ship was lost on the ground that modern conditions 
called for instant action, with which courts-martial were 
incompatible. But the court-martial, as I have before 
pointed out, is the palladium of the Navy's liberties. To 
abolish it is like suspending the Habeas Corpus. It is so 
extreme a measure because it ignores the great unwritten 
law of the Navy, which is that, in spite of the authority 
of Whitehall over the Navy, of an admiral over a fleet, 
and of a captain over a ship's company, being necessarily 
and in each case absolute, yet there must always be an 
appeal from authority to the profession itself. If this is 
necessary for the protection of subordinate officers and 
men against arbitrary action by a captain, against arbi- 
trary and prejudiced action by an admiral in a fleet, how 
much more necessary is it as a protection of naval stand- 
ards and traditions against arbitrary action by the Board ? 
For a captain is at any rate an entirely naval authority; 
an admiral is certainly an officer of large naval experience, 
acting generally with at least one other admiral. But 
the Board is largely a lay body. Indeed, it is now by a 
majority a lay body. And like all boards, it is liable to 
be the mouthpiece of its strongest personality. If this, 
as sometimes happens, is a seaman, he may be a partisan — 
I say it in no invidious sense— of certain policies and so 



264 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

prejudiced against brother officers who differ. If the 
stronger character is a layman, he may be ignorant of, 
or see no danger in waiving, naval traditions that are 
embodied in no statute or regulation, but are not embodied 
simply because their cogency has never been questioned. 
In other words, the autocracy of the Admiralty is a 
necessity of executive administration, but can only be 
exercised safely if its enforcement is continuously tested 
by professional opinion. 

How many people, I often wonder, really appreciate 
how singular a body is that which is made up of admirals, 
captains, commanders, and lieutenants of the Royal Navy? 
The accomplishments that make the seaman confuse the 
landsman by their strangeness and intricacy. Indeed, 
if one wishes to express the extremity of bewilderment, 
he does so best by the metaphor which describes the 
sailor's normal environment. When we say we are "at 
sea/' we do so because language expresses no greater 
helplessness. To master these conditions calls for forms 
of knowledge and proficiency that are only acquired by a 
lifetime's familiarity. But these conditions are not only 
baffling, they are incredibly dangerous. If steam has 
done much to lessen the perils of the sea, speed, the pro- 
duct of steam, has added to them. The sailor then, even 
in times of peace, passes his days, and still more his nights, 
encompassed by the threat of irreparable disaster. An 
oversight that may take thirty seconds to commit — and 
a hundred deaths, a wrecked ship, and a shattered reputa- 
tion reward thirty years of constant and unblemished 
devotion to duty. To face a life and responsibilities like 
these calls for more than great mental and physical skill, 
though nowhere will you find these in a higher degree or 
more widely diffused than in the Fleet. It calls for moral 






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THE DOGGER BANK II 265 

and spiritual qualities, for a development of character in 
patience, unselfishness, and courage which few landsmen 
have any inducement to cultivate. A life lived daily 
in the presence of death must be a unique life, and it is 
not surprising that men bred to these conditions — always 
as hard and ascetic as they are uncertain and unsafe — 
grow to be a body quite unlike other men, with standards 
and traditions of their own, and a corporate spirit and 
capacity that are unique, wonderful, and to most landsmen 
incomprehensible. 

Their standards and traditions can only be maintained 
and can only be enforced by themselves. And the great 
peril that follows from excluding all reference to them of 
the accidents and failures of war is that, failing this 
reference, we have no security that naval action will 
be judged as it should be, solely by the highest naval 
standard. 

Much was said in the House of Commons about the 
loss of ships. Mr. Churchill assumed that the only motive 
for asking for courts-martial was to find a scapegoat. 
Lord Charles Beresford only made clear that a court- 
martial was as much for clearing the character as for find- 
ing criminals. There was a significant phrase in Mr. 
Churchill's speech that raises, it seems to me, a point in 
this connection of far greater importance. The battle 
of the Dogger Bank, he said, was "not fought out because 
the enemy made good their escape into waters infested 
by submarines and mines." The officer who had to call 
ofF a fleet in these circumstances was necessarily faced 
by a grave and almost terrifying responsibility. To be 
too bold was to risk everything, to be too cautious was 
to throw away a victory. Can any tribunal, except the 
Navy, judge whether this responsibility was rightly 



266 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

exercised ? When we remember that in our greatest days 
hardly a naval battle took place that was not followed by 
courts-martial, it seems to me a most perilous thing to 
allow these tremendous issues to go by the board because 
unless they are adjudicated upon by the profession itself 
they are not adjudicated upon at all. 



CHAPTER XIX 
The Battle of Jutland 

i. north sea strategies • 

The battle off Jutland Bank, which took place on May 
3 i, 1916, was the first and, at the time of writing, has been 
the only meeting between the main naval forces of Great 
Britain and Germany. It was from the first inevitable 
that we should have to wait long for a sea fight. It was 
inevitable, because the probability of a smaller force being 
not only decisively defeated, but altogether destroyed in 
a sea fight, is far greater than in a land battle, and the 
consciousness of this naturally makes it chary of the risk. 
Sea war in this respect preserves the characteristic of 
ancient land fighting, for — as is luminously explained in 
Commandant Colin's incomparable "Transformations of 
War" — it was a common characteristic of the older 
campaigns that the main armies would remain almost in 
touch with each other month after month before the 
battle took place. He sums up his generalization thus: 
"From the highest antiquity," he says, "till the time 
of Frederick II, operations present the same character; 
*not only Fabius or Turenne, but also Caesar, Conde, and 
Frederick, lead their armies in the same way. Far from 
the enemy they force the pace, but as soon as they draw 
near they move hither and thither in every direction, take 
days, weeks, months in deciding to accept or to force 
battle. Whether the armies are made up of hoplites or 

267 



268 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

legionaries, or pikemen or musketeers, they move as one 
whole and deploy very slowly. They cannot hurl them- 
selves upon the enemy as soon as they perceive him, 
because while they are making ready for battle he dis- 
appears in another direction. 

"In order to change this state of affairs we must some- 
how or another be able to put into the fight big divisions, 
each deploying on its own account, leaving gaps and 
irregularities along the front. 

"This, as we have seen, is what happened in the eigh- 
teenth century. 

"Up to the time of Frederick II, armies remained 
indivisible during operations; they are like mathematical 
points on the huge theatres of operations in Central 
Europe. It is not possible to grasp, to squeeze, or even 
to push back on some obstacle, an enemy who refuses 
battle, and retires laterally as well as backwards. There 
is no end to the pursuit. It is the war of Caesar, as it was 
that of Conde, Turenne, Montecuculi, Villars, Eugene, 
Maurice de Saxe, and Frederick. It is the sort of war 
that all more or less regular armies have made from the 
remotest antiquity down to the middle of the eighteenth 
century. 

"Battle only takes place by mutual consent, when 
both adversaries, as at Rocroi, are equally sure of victory, 
and throw themselves at one another in open country as 
if for a duel; or when one of them, as at Laufeld, cannot 
retreat without abandoning the struggle; or when one is ; 
surprised, as at Rossbach. 

"And certainly to-day, as heretofore, a general may 
refuse battle; but he cannot prolong his retreat for long — 
it is the only means that he has for escaping the grip of 
the enemy — if the depth of the theatre of operations is 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 269 

limited. On the other hand, an enemy formerly could 
retire laterally, and disappear for months by perpetually 
running to and fro, always taking cover behind every 
obstacle in order to avoid attack." 

But at sea a fleet has to-day precisely the same power 
of avoiding action that an army had in former days. It 
cannot disappear for months by "running to and fro," 
but it can disappear for years by burying itself in inac- 
cessible harbours. It can, in other words, take itself out 
of the theatre of war altogether while yet retaining liberty 
at any moment to re-enter it. How, in view of these 
potentialities, did the rival fleets dispose their forces? 

On April 25, 1916, some German cruisers made an attack 
on Lowestoft, similar in character but far less considerable 
in result to those made in the autumn of 19 14, on the 
same small town, on Scarborough, Whitby, and the 
Hartlepools. As in 1914, there was considerable perturba- 
tion on the East Coast, and the Admiralty, urged to take 
steps for the protection of the seaboard towns, made a 
somewhat startling announcement. While this was going 
forward in England, the German Admiralty put out an 
inspired commentary on the raid, which dwelt with great 
exultation over the picture of "the Island Empire, once 
so proud, now quivering with rage at its own impotence." 
These two documents, the First Lord's and the German 
apology, led to a good deal of discussion, which I dealt 
with at the time in terms that I quote textually, as show- 
ing the general conception of naval strategy underlying 
the dispositions of the British Fleet. 

"The directly military employment of the British Fleet 
has during the last week been made the subject of dis- 
cussion. Mr. Balfour has written a strange letter to the 
Mayors of the East Coast towns, which foreshadows 



270 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

important developments; an inspired German apology 
for the recent raid on Yarmouth and Lowestoft has been 
published, and both have aroused comment. Mr. Bal- 
four's letter was inspired by a desire to reassure the 
battered victims of the German bombardment. He 
realized that the usual commonplace that these visits had 
little military value no longer met the case, and proceeded 
to threaten the Germans with new and more effective 
methods of meeting them, should these murderous 
experiments be repeated. The new measures were to take 
two forms. The towns themselves would be locally 
defended by monitors and submarines, and, without 
disturbing naval preponderance elsewhere, new units 
would be brought farther south, so that the interception 
of raiders would be made more easy. But for one con- 
sideration the publication of such a statement as this 
would be inexplicable. If the effective destruction of 
German raiders really had been prepared, the last thing 
the Admiralty would be expected to do would be to 
acquaint the enemy with the disconcerting character of 
its future reception. Count Reventlow indeed explains 
the publication by the fact that no such preparations 
have indeed been made. But the thing is susceptible of 
a more probable explanation. 

"When Mr. Churchill, in the high tide of his optimism, 
addressed the House of Commons at the beginning of last 
year — he had the Falkland Islands and the Dogger Bank 
battles, the obliteration of the German ocean cruising 
force, the extinction of the enemy merchant marine, the 
security of English communications to his credit — he 
explained the accumulated phenomena of our sea triumph 
by the splendid perfection of his pre-war preparedness. 
The submarine campaign, the failure of the Dardanelles, 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 271 

the revelation of the defenceless state of the northeastern 
harbours, these things have somewhat modified the picture 
that the ex-First Lord drew. And, not least of our dis- 
illusions, we have all come to realize that in our neglect 
of the airship we have allowed the enemy to develop, for 
his sole benefit, a method of naval scouting that is entirely 
denied to us. That the British Admiralty and the British 
Fleet perfectly realize this disadvantage is the meaning 
of Mr. Balfour's letter. He would not have told the 
enemy of our new North Sea arrangements had he not 
known that he could not be kept in ignorance of them 
for longer than a week or two, once they were made. The 
letter is, in fact, an admission that our sea power has to a 
great extent lost what was at one time its supreme preroga- 
tive, the capacity of strategical surprise. 

"But this does not materially alter the dynamics of the 
North Sea position, although it greatly affects tactics. 
The German official apologist will have it, however, that 
another factor has altered these dynamics. Admiral 
Jellicoe, he says, may be secure enough with his vast fleet 
in his 'great bay in the Orkneys,' and, between that and 
the Norwegian coast, hold a perfectly effective blockade 
line, but all British calculations of North Sea strategy 
have been upset by the establishment of new enemy naval 
bases at Zeebrugge, Ostend, and Antwerp. He speaks 
glibly, as if the co-operation of the forces based on the 
Bight with those in the stolen Belgian ports had altered 
the position fundamentally. This, of course, is the veriest 
rubbish. So far no captured Belgian port has been made 
the base for anything more important than submarines 
that can cross the North Sea under water, and for the few 
destroyers that have made a dash through in the darkness. 
Such balderdash as this, and that the German battle- 



272 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

cruisers did not take to flight, but simply 'returned to 
their bases' without waiting for the advent of 'superior 
forces/ imposes on nobody. It remains, of course, 
perfectly manifest that our surface control of the North 
Sea is as absolute as the character of modern weapons 
and the present understanding of their use make possible. 

"The principles behind our North Sea Strategy are 
simple. One hundred years ago, had our main naval 
enemy been based on Cuxhaven and Kiel, we should have 
held him there by as close a blockade as the number of 
ships at our disposal, the weather conditions, and the 
seamanship of our captains made possible. The develop- 
ment of the steam-driven ship modified the theory of 
close blockade and, even without the torpedo, would 
have made, with the speed now attainable, an exact 
continuation of the old practice impossible. The under- 
water torpedo has simply emphasized and added to 
difficulties that would, without it, have been insuperable. 
But it has undoubtedly extended the range at which the 
blockading force must hold itself in readiness. To re- 
produce, then, in modern conditions the effect brought 
about by close blockade in our previous wars, it is neces- 
sary to have a naval base at a suitable distance from the 
enemy's base. It must be one that is proof against 
under-water or surface torpedo vessel attack, and it must 
be so constituted that the force that normally maintains 
itself there is capable of prompt and rapid sortie, and of 
pouncing upon any enemy fleet that attempts to break 
out of the harbour in which it is intended to confine it. 

'"The great bay in the Orkneys' may, for all I know 
to the contrary, supply at the present moment the Grand 
Fleet's main base for such blockade as we enforce. But 
there are a great many other ports, inlets, and estuaries 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 273 

on the East Coast of Scotland and England which are 
hardly likely to be entirely neglected. Not all, nor many, 
of these would be suitable for fleet units of the greatest 
size and speed, but some undoubtedly are suitable, and 
all those that are could be made to satisfy the conditions 
of complete protection against secret attack. Assuming 
the main battle fleet to be at an extremely northerly 
point, any more southerly base which is kept either by 
battle cruisers, light cruisers, or submarines may be 
regarded as an advance base, if for no other reason than 
that it is so many miles nearer to the German base. The 
Orkneys are 200 miles farther from Lowestoft than Lowe- 
stoft is from Heligoland. An Orkney concentration 
while making the escape of the Germans to the northward 
impossible, would leave them comparatively free to harry 
the East Coast of England. If, approaching during the 
night, they could arrive off that coast before the northern 
forces had news of their leaving their harbours, they 
would have many hours' start in the race home. It is 
not, then, a close blockade that was maintained. This 
freedom had to be left the enemy — because no risk could be 
taken in the main theatre. It is assumed on the one side 
and admitted on the other, that Germany could gain noth- 
ing and would risk everything by attempting to pass down 
the Channel. The Channel is closed to the German Fleet 
precisely as the Sound is closed to the British. It is not 
that it is physically impossible for either fleet to get 
through, but that to force a passage would involve an 
operation employing almost every kind of craft. Mine- 
fields would have to be cleared, and battleships would 
have to be in attendance to protect the mine-sweepers. 
The battleships in turn would have to be protected 
from submarine attack, and as the operation of securing 



274 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

either channel would take some time, there would be a 
virtual certainty of the force employed being attacked 
in the greatest possible strength. In narrow waters the 
fleet trying to force a passage would be compelled to engage 
in the most disadvantageous possible circumstances. 
The Channel is closed, then, for the Germans, as the 
Sound is closed to the British, not by the under-water 
defences, but by the fact that to clear these would involve 
an action in which the attacking party would be at too 
great a disadvantage. The concentration, then, in the 
north of a force adequate to deal with the whole German 
Fleet — again I have to say in the light of the way in which 
the use of modern weapons is understood — remains our 
fundamental strategical principle/"' 

I then went on to reply to the critics who had said that 
the use of monitors for coast defence was the most dis- 
turbing feature of a very unwise series of departures from 
true policy, and then passed on to what seemed to me the 
more serious criticism, as follows : 

"The attack on this part of Mr. Balfour's policy is 
vastly more damaging. For it asserts that the policy of 
defensive offence, Great Britain's traditional sea strategy, 
has now been reversed. The East Coast towns may ex- 
pect comparative immunity, but only because the strategic 
use of our forces has been altered. It is a modification 
imposed upon the Admiralty by the action of the enemy. 
Its weakness lies in the 'substitution of squadrons in fixed 
positions for periodical sweeps in force through the length 
and breadth of the North Sea.' Were this indeed the 
meaning of Mr. Balfour's letter and the intention of his 
policy, nothing more deplorable could be imagined. 

"But what ground is there for thinking that this is Mr. 
Balfour's meaning? He says nothing of the kind. He 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 275 

makes it quite clear that a new arrangement is made pos- 
sible by additional units of the first importance now being 
ready to use. The old provision of adequate naval pre- 
ponderance at the right point has not been disturbed. It 
is merely proposed to establish new and advanced bases 
from which the new available squadrons can strike. It 
stands to reason that the nearer this base is to the shortest 
line between Heligoland and the East Coast, the greater 
the chance of the force within it being able to fall upon 
Germany's cruising or raiding units if they venture within 
the radius of its action. To establish a new or more 
southerly base, then, is a development of, and not a de- 
parture from, our previous strategy — it shortens the radius 
of German freedom. If there is nothing to show that the 
old distribution is changed, certainly there is no suggestion 
that the squadron destined for the new base will be 'fixed' 
there. If squadrons now based on the north are there 
only to pounce upon the emerging German ships, why 
should squadrons based farther south not be employed for 
a similar purpose ? " 

The foregoing will make it clear that the general idea 
of British strategy was to maintain, to the extreme north 
of these islands, an overwhelming force of capital ships. 
It was adopted because it economized strength and secured 
the main object — viz. the paralysis of our enemy, outside 
certain narrow limits. 

The southern half of the North Sea — say, roughly from 
Peterhead to the Skagerack, 400 miles; from the Skagerack 
to Heligoland, 250; from Heligoland to Lowestoft, 300; 
and from Lowestoft to Peterhead, 350 miles — was left 
as a kind of no man's land. If the Germans chose to 
cruise about in this area, they took the chance of being cut 
off and engaged by the British forces, whose policy it was 



276 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

j 

to leave their bases from time to time for what Sir John 
Jellicoe in the Jutland despatch describes as "periodic 
sweeps through the North Sea." But the German Fleet 
•being supplied with Zeppelins, could, in weather in which 
Zeppelins could scout, get information so far afield as to be 
*able to choose the times for their own cruises in the North 
Sea, and so make the procedure a perfectly safe one, so 
long as chance encounters with submarines and straying 
into British mine-fields could be avoided. Thus for the 
old policy of close blockade was substituted a new one, 
that of leaving the enemy a large field in which he might 
be tempted to manoeuvre; and it had this value, that 
should he yield to the temptation, an opportunity must 
sooner or later be afforded to the British Fleet of cutting 
him off and bringing him to action. Meantime he was 
cut off from any large adventure far afield. He would 
; have to fight for freedom. It gave, so to speak, the Ger- 
mans the chance of playing a new sort of "Tom Tiddler's 
ground." The point to bear in mind is, that it left the 
Germans precisely the same freedom to seek or avoid 
action as the armies of antiquity possessed. Thus no y 
naval battle could be expected unless — as Colin says — the 
weaker wished to fight, or was cornered or surprised. 

Now, against surprise, the German Fleet was seemingly 
protected by Zeppelins. It could hardly be cornered 
unless, in weather in which aerial scouting was impossible, 
it was tempted to some great adventure — such as the des- 
patch of a raiding force to invade — which would enable 
a fast British division to get between this force and its 
base. So that the chance of a fleet action really turned 
upon the Germans being willing to fight one. And they 
could not be expected to be anxious for this. "A war," 
says Colin, "is always slow in which we know that the 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 277 

battle will be decisive, and it is so important as to be only 
accepted voluntarily." 

The state of relative strength in May, 1916, was not 
such as to afford the Germans the slightest hope of a de- 
cisive victory if it brought the whole British Fleet to 
action. Nor was the naval situation such that there was 
any stroke that Germany could execute if it could hold 
the command of some sea passage for twenty-four hours 
or so. There was nothing it could expect to achieve if, 
by defeating or at any rate standing off one section of the 
British Fleet, it could enjoy a brief local ascendancy. 

The argument, indeed, was all the other way. The 
professed main naval policy of Germany, viz., the blockade 
of England by submarine, though for the moment in 
abeyance, was being held in reserve until the military and 
political situation made the stake worth the candle. Now, 
deliberately to risk the High Seas Fleet in an action on the 
grand scale, when the chances of decisive victory were re- 
mote and the probability of annihilation extremely high, 
was to jeopardize not the fleet alone but also the blockade. 
For, with the High Seas Fleet once out of the way, the 
one stroke against the submarine which could alone be 
perfectly effective, viz., the close under-water blockade by 
mines, immediately outside the German harbours, would 
at once become feasible. So far, then, as military consid- 
erations went, the arguments against seeking action were 
far stronger than those in its favour. 

But in war it is not always reasons which are purely 
military that operate; and as this war got into its second 
year there were many forces, each of which contributed 
something towards driving the German Navy into action. 
First, and in all probability by far the most powerful, 
would be the impatience of a large body of brave and skil- 



278 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

ful seamen — in control of an enormous sea force — with 
the role of idleness and impotence that had been imposed 
upon them. The German apologist, when uttering his 
paeans of triumph over the bombardments of Lowestoft, 
said, on May 7: 

"It must not be assumed that this adventure was a mere 
question of bombarding some fortified coast places. It 
would also be a mistake to think that it was only an expres- 
sion of the spirit of enterprise in our young Navy. The 
spirit is indeed just as fresh as ever, and is simply thirsting 
for deeds, and when one sees or talks to officers and men 
one reads on their lips the desire Tf only we could get out.' 
The sitting still during the spring and winter may also play 
their part in this. Only a well-considered leadership 
knows when it will use this thirst for action, and employ 
it in undertakings which keep the great whole in view. 
Our Navy, thank God, does not need to pursue prestige 
policy; the services which it has already rendered us are 
too considerable and too important for that." 

There is no occasion to quarrel with a word in this pass- 
age. The German admirals and captains in command of 
twenty-three or twenty-four of the most powerful ships 
in the world must certainly have been straining at the 
leash. This, then, would be a predisposing cause to a 
battle of some kind being voluntarily sought by the weaker 
force. 

And in May, 1916, there were other causes as well. The 
German Higher Command, while ignorant perhaps of the 
exact points at which the Allies would attack, must have 
been very perfectly aware that attacks of the most for- 
midable character, and on all fronts, were impending. It 
also knew that the resources of the Central Empires were 
to this extent relatively exhausted, that all the Allied 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 279 

attacks, when they came, must result in a series of suc- 
cesses, not of course immediately decisive, but such as no 
counter-attacks could balance or neutralize. Austria and 
Germany, in short, would be shown to be on the defensive. 
They would have to yield ground. It may not have 
seemed a situation bound to lead to military defeat. For 
the superiority of the Allies — at least so it may have ap- 
peared to the German command— in men and ammu- 
nition and moral, would have to be overwhelming to bring 
this about. 

But the Higher Command had made the mistake of 
carrying the civil population with them in the declaration 
and prosecution of the war, first by the promise and then 
by the assertion of overwhelming victory. But the vic- 
tory that was claimed did not materialize in the way that 
is normal to great victories. There was no submission 
of the enemy, and no sign of a wish for an honourable 
peace. What was worse, the defeated enemy had shown 
an almost unlimited capacity to starve and hamper their 
conquerors. It was bad enough that they should not 
acknowledge themselves beaten. It was worse that the 
flail of hunger should fall on those who should be fattening 
on the fruits of victory. What would the state of mind 
of the German people be if, on the top of all this, the con- 
quered Allies were to evince a capacity for winning a few 
battles themselves ? It was manifestly a position in which, 
at any cost, the moral of the German people should be 
braced for a new trial. Given a fleet impatient to get out 
and a higher command anxious for news of a victory, 
these are surely elements enough to explain the events 
that led to the action of May 31. 

But the most powerful motive of all was this : Not only 
was German moral badly in need of refreshment, it was 



280 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

especially that Germany's belief in her naval power needed 
to be confirmed. For, in the last week in April, the Em- 
peror and his counsellors had been compelled to submit 
to a peremptory ultimatum despatched by President Wil- 
son with the endorsement of both houses of Congress be- 
hind him. Towards the end of the winter 191 5-16 the 
German people had been led to expect a decisive stroke 
against England by the new U-boats which the Tirpitz 
building programme of the previous year was reputed to be 
producing in large and punctual numbers. The Grand 
Admiral himself, amid the vociferous applause of the 
Jingoes and Junkers, announced that the campaign would 
begin on a certain day in March. The stoiy how more 
cautious counsels prevailed, how the Grand Admiral was 
dismissed, how an agitation was thereupon organized 
throughout Germany, and how, finally, the campaign was 
begun, though its author was out of office, are well known. 
The point is that the sinking of the passenger ship Sussex 
led America to define the position and to inflict a public 
humiliation, not only on the German Government but on 
the German Navy. On the top of all the other predispos- 
ing causes, then, here was a special reason why the sea 
forces of the Fatherland should vindicate their existence 
by some signal act of daring. 

We must then, I think, in considering the Battle of 
Jutland, start with the assumption that the German Fleet 
came out in obedience both to policy and to its own desire. 
But we should be wrong if we supposed that they came 
out with any hopes of achieving final and decisive victory. 
It has never been a characteristic of German military 
thought to build on the possibilities of an inferior force 
defeating its superior. 

On the other hand, it was very confident that it could 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 281 

not be decisively beaten. Being an inferior force, the 
German Navy has been driven to giving the utmost con- 
sideration to all the methods of fighting that can add to 
the defensive in battle. It was not slow to realize, as we 
have seen, the enormous advantage that the dirigible air- 
ship offered in scouting, and from the first it has devoted 
itself with special energy and care to the practice and de- 
velopment of the defensive tactics which the long-range 
torpedo made possible. Nor is this all. For though the 
Germany Navy was the last of all the great navies to 
cultivate long-range gunnery, it very quickly appreciated 
the fact that its efficiency depended upon the visibility of 
the target, that it should be launched at periods when the 
rate of change was constant. It consequently made it a 
first step in its war preparations to supply itself with the 
finest optical instruments regardless of cost, so as to get 
the range and the rate with utmost accuracy and rapidity 
and to master all the means by which the enemy's gunfire 
could be made nugatory both by devices that would hide 
its own ships from his view, and by imposing sudden man- 
oeuvres by torpedo attack. We have already seen, in the 
story of the Dogger Bank engagement, how the pursuing 
British battle-cruisers were hampered in their chase and 
indeed deflected from their course by submarines skilfully 
stationed for attack, and by the employment in action of 
destroyer flotillas. And, again, how when Bluecher was 
disabled, and two out of three battle-cruisers were on fire 
and their batteries useless, they were shielded in their 
final flight by the destroyers interposing themselves on 
the British line of fire and then raising huge volumes of 
smoke impenetrable to the eye. 

Lastly, as German writers since the battle have never 
ceased to remind us, the German Fleet had never been 



282 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

built with the idea of its being able to fight and defeat the 
British Fleet, but with the idea of creating a force so for- 
midable that the British Fleet would not face the risk to 
itself that would be involved in its destruction. That there 
was some justification for such a belief will become appar- 
ent when we consider the statements of various British 
naval authorities made after the action was over. I draw 
attention to it here because it was undoubtedly reliance 
on some hesitation of this kind that gave the Germans 
such confidence in the methods of evasion which they 
adopted when the two fleets met. 

In asking ourselves why the Germans came out we must 
bear this extremely significant truth in mind. They be- 
lieved that they could almost certainly avoid contact with 
the Grand Fleet, but they also believed that if contact 
were made, what with torpedo attacks and smoke screens, 
they could hold off their enemies long enough to make 
evasion possible. To the Germans, then, it was very far 
from being an irrational risk to come into the North Sea 
to look for the enemy, with a view to fight on the principle 
of limited liability. 



CHAPTER XX 

The Battle of Jutland — (Continued) 

II. THE URGENCY OF A DECISION 

We can safely accept the German official statement, that 
their objective on May 31 was to cut off and chastise that 
portion of our advanced forces that had so often swept 
across to the Schleswig coast in the previous few months. 
The force they were looking for would naturally be the 
Battle Cruiser Fleet, for it had been this force that had 
always been nearest the German bases, even when the 
whole of both British fleets were engaged in sweeping. 
But it is not necessary to suppose that in every sweep both 
fleets took part. In coming out, then, the Germans 
would expect to meet the battle-cruisers, if anything, and 
they would count either upon the Grand Fleet not being 
in the field at all, or at any rate to be sufficiently far off to 
be of no immediate danger. 

But how could the Germans expect to bring Sir David 
Beatty to action? The Battle Cruiser Fleet, before the 
Battle of Jutland, was exactly twice as numerous, and in 
gun power more than twice as strong, as the German fast 
division. In the Battle of Jutland it was reinforced by 
the Fifth Battle Squadron, ships to which Germany pos- 
sessed no counterparts at all. Clearly, then, if Sir David 
Beatty's force was to be brought to action and defeated 
it would be useless to rely upon Von Hipper alone. The 
whole German naval forces would be required. And 

283 



284 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

according to enemy accounts sixteen modern battlesnips 
appeared on May 31. None of these had a greater speed 
than 21 knots, and, as they were said to be accompanied 
by six pre-Dreadnoughts, the speed of the whole fleet could 
not have exceeded 18 knots. The united German forces 
would, of course, have a fleet speed of the slowest squadron. 
How can an 18-knot squadron corner and chastise a 25- 
knot squadron — for 25 knots was an easy speed for the 
slowest of the Battle Cruiser Fleet? 

It is clear, then, that Von Hipper's fleet would not he 
able to get into action with Sir David Beatty's fleet, unless 
the British Admiral chose to engage. Before the news of 
the battle was three days old, the suggestion had been 
many times made that the loss of Queen Mary, Indefatig- 
able, and Invincible was to be explained by their having 
been employed in "rash and impetuous tactics," and set 
to engage a superior force by the "over-confidence" of the 
Admiral responsible for their movements. And one critic 
went so far as to say that the opportunity for the German 
Commander-in-Chief to overwhelm an inferior British 
force with greatly superior numbers was exactly what the 
enemy was looking for. With the justice of this as a 
criticism of Sir David Beatty's tactics I will deal later. 
But that Admiral Scheer fully expected that if Sir David 
Beatty found him he would engage him, we may take for 
granted. Just as he and his own officers and men were 
anxious for action, so must Sir David and his fleet be 
burning with a desire to get to grips. He banked, that 
is to say, on Sir David attacking. If he did, the German 
position and prospects were distinctly good. There would 
be twenty-one ships against nine or ten, and if the fast 
battleships were with the British Vice-Admiral, against 
fourteen or fifteen. The preponderance in force would 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 285 

certainly be on the German side. It should not be difficult 
to escape defeat. With luck, serious loss might be inflicted 
on the British before it was compelled to break off battle 
and retreat, especially if it sought close action. It might 
indeed be compelled to continue the battle, if some of its 
units were wounded, for the Vice-Admiral would certainly 
hesitate to desert them. 

As to the danger of the situation being reversed — by 
the Grand Fleet turning up — in the first place, Zeppelins 
might save him from that. If they did not, he always had 
the card up his sleeve, that he could stand the British 
Fleet off by torpedoes, and shield himself by smoke from 
the very long-range gunnery which the torpedo attacks 
would make inevitable. So much for the German plan. 
Now how about the English plan ? 

It is a little difficult to say exactly what the British plan 
was, if by plan we mean a definite understanding existing 
between the Higher Command in London and the Com- 
mander-in-Chief at sea. For as to this no information 
whatever has been given to the public and we can only 
arrive at its tenor by the fact that the Admiralty after 
the event expressed itself completely satisfied with the 
Commander-in-Chiefs conduct after the fight — a matter 
to be gone into in greater detail later. For the moment 
the only indication we have of the general policy which has 
inspired Whitehall, is that given by Mr. Churchill in an 
article contributed to a popular magazine a few months after 
the action was fought. In this he laid down the following 
as the sea doctrine that should guide our naval conduct: 

From the first day of the war, he said, the British Navy 
had exercised the full and unquestioned command of the 
sea. So long as it really remained unchallenged and un- 
beaten the superior fleet ruled all the open waters of the 



286 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

world. From the beginning it had enjoyed all the fruits 
of a complete victory. Had Germany never built a 
Dreadnought, or if all the German Dreadnoughts had 
been sunk, the control and authority of the British Navy 
could not have been more effective. There had been no 
Trafalgar, but the full consequences of a Trafalgar had 
been continuously operative. There was no reason why 
this condition of affairs should not continue indefinitely. 
Without a battle we had all that the most victorious of 
battles could give us. This was the true starting point 
of any reflections on the war by sea. We were content! 
As for Jutland, there was no need for the British to seek 
that battle at all. There was no strategic cause or com- 
pulsion operating to draw our battle fleet into Danish 
waters. If we chose to go there it was because of zeal 
and strength. A keen desire to engage the enemy impelled, 
and a cool calculation of ample margins of superiority 
justified, a movement not necessarily required by any 
practical need. The battle must, therefore, be regarded 
as an audacious attempt to bring the enemy to action, 
arising out of consciousness of overwhelming superiority! 
A little consideration will, I think, convince us that Mr. 
Churchill was altogether wrong in supposing that a de- 
cisive action was not highly important to us at this time. 
For obviously the German Fleet came out to do something, 
and if my suggestion is right — that its mission was to raise 
German moral — we had first the obvious duty of prevent- 
ing the German Fleet doing anything it wished to do, and 
next an insistent duty to depress German moral, at least 
as much as Admiral Scheer wished to raise it. Apart 
from any material or directly military results, a second 
Trafalgar, had it really broken the hearts of German 
civilians, might have been an element decisive of the power 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 287 

of the German people to endure the privations that the 
prolongation of war inflicts upon them. It might finally 
have broken down the whole structure of lying bluff that 
the Emperor's government has maintained. This would 
have been a military object of the first value and import- 
ance. If the war is to end by the collapse, not of the Ger- 
man Army but of the German people, the value of such 
a victory and such a result can be measured by the number 
of days of war that it would have saved at a cost in men 
and treasure that it is hard to calculate. 

But apart altogether from this, there were other con- 
siderations, some economic and some military, so im- 
mensely serious, as would certainly have justified Sir 
David Beatty in risking, not three 3 but all his battle- 
cruisers, if by so doing he could have insured the entire 
destruction of the German Fleet by Sir John Jellicoe's 
forces. To realize this point we must carry our consider- 
ation of the naval strategy of the two sides in this war a 
little further. We have seen that our method of disposing 
of our forces in the North Sea gave the German Fleet a 
certain limited freedom of manoeuvre in the irregular 
quadrilateral formed by Peterhead, the Skagerack, Heligo- 
land, and Lowestoft. Outside of this area there was not, 
after December 8, 1914, a single German warship afloat 
that was not a fugitive or in hiding, nor has any surface 
ship ventured outside this area since. When the careers 
of Karlsruhe and Emden terminated, the period of system- 
atic capture of our trading ships closed also. But Von 
Tirpitz was very far from being satisfied with the situation 
so created. 

The Grand Admiral was wildly wrong in the kind of navy 
that he built for Germany, and hopelessly at sea in his 
forecast of the action England would take in the kind of 



288 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

war that Germany intended to provoke. But when the 
events of the first few months showed that the war would 
be a long one, it is not certain that he was not the first 
European in authority to realize to the full the role sea- 
power would play. In a long war, the merchant shipping 
of the world — and it was immaterial whether it was bel- 
ligerent or neutral — would obviously be the one thing by 
which the Allies, by importations of raw material, and the 
manufactures of America, the British colonies, and Japan, 
could counterbalance the vastly superior organization of 
the Central Powers for working their industries and fac- 
tories. Shipping was at once the source of supply of the 
whole Alliance and the military communications of the 
most formidable of them. The German submarines had 
had a small initial success against British warships. It 
was disappointing from the point of view of the attrition 
that Germany had hoped for. But it opened Von Tirpitz's 
eyes to the immense possibilities of a submarine attack 
on trading ships. He saw, then, both the necessity of 
cutting the Allies off from the sea, and the means of cut- 
ting them off*. The plan was an outrageous one from the 
point of view of morals. But Von Tirpitz's conception of 
the importance of sea supplies to the Allies was perfectly 
correct, and in organizing an attack upon it he was striking 
straight at the heart of our power of carrying on the war. 

This campaign had a very direct bearing upon our 
North Sea strategy, for at the date at which the Battle of 
Jutland was fought, about two and a half million tons 
of British, Allied, and neutral shipping had been sunk by 
submarine and mine. Had the war imposed no other 
attacks upon merchant shipping, the percentage lost 
would not have been very formidable. In the eighteen 
months that had elapsed since the first organized subma- 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 289 

rine attack on trade, it represented a rate of sinking of less 
than a million and three-quarter tons a year, a loss which 
the Allies and neutrals could easily have counteracted by 
more energetic building. But more than half of Great 
Britain's ocean-going shipping had been commandeered 
for various war purposes and already in 1916 it had be- 
come obvious that the remaining stock of ships could not 
seriously be diminished without grave embarrassment, 
either to civil supply, to our financial position, to our mili- 
tary power abroad, or to all three. What was much 
more serious was this: It was a well-known fact that 
immediately after the German Government decided to 
blockade by submarine, a very large building programme 
was put in hand. The programme, as we have seen, had 
begun to materialize at the beginning of 1916, and it was 
Germany's resources in new ships that was Tirpitz's justi- 
fication for risking a quarrel with America, so certain did 
the ruin of England seem, were ruthlessness of method 
combined with the employment of larger and larger num- 
bers. The Higher Naval Command, then, in this country 
were fully aware of the extreme importance of being able 
to deal drastically with this menace, should it once more 
arise to threaten our sea communications. They also 
knew that it was certain to arise. And, again, they knew 
that the under-water threat could only be completely met 
by an under-water antidote. In the nature of things, as 
we have seen, there could be no complete reply to the sub- 
marine except by mines laid in continuous barrage outside 
the German harbours, and this in turn was a thing that 
could not be done unless the German Fleet were destroyed. 
Whatever reason there may have been in 1914 and 191 5 
for holding the Churchill doctrine that a victory was un- 
necessary, the brief submarine campaign of 1916 must 



290 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

have undeceived the blindest. For this campaign had 
not only shown that ruthlessness could double the rate 
of sinking, it had also shown that our stock counter- 
measures were ineffective to thwart it. It was, then, a 
matter of the very highest military importance to the 
cause of the Alliance that the German Fleet should be dis- 
posed of, so that the renewal of the German submarine 
campaign should be virtually impossible. 

Had this indeed been the result, it is difficult to calcu- 
late the profound influence it must have had upon the 
course of the war, for within a year of the Battle of Jutland 
over five and a half million tons of shipping were destroyed 
and throughout that year a very high percentage of British 
shipbuilding capacity had necessarilv to be devoted to 
purely military purposes. 

The continued existence of the German Fleet made it 
impossible to curtail, made it indeed obligatory to increase 
and accelerate, the building of war ships of all sizes. The 
effect of this on the capacity to build merchant ships was 
felt immediately. In pre-war days the shipyards of 
Great Britain had turned out over a million and a quarter 
tons of merchant shipping and a quarter of a million tons 
of naval shipping. The same yards, had their industry 
been organized as a national activity, could under the pres- 
sure of war undoubtedly have produced two and a half 
million tons a year. The complete destruction of the 
German Fleet at Jutland, then, would have made the dif- 
ference of nearly eight million tons of shipping before an- 
other year was out. What would this have meant in the 
saving of treasure, in man-power, in every other form of 
military strength to the Allies? But apart from these, 
there were further military objects of a very striking kind 
that might well have been within reach. 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 291 

We have just seen, in discussing the North Sea strategy, 
that the kind of blockade we have maintained over the 
Germans was a long-range sort, leaving the German 
fleets an area of, say, 60,000 square miles in which to 
manoeuvre. If there had been no fleet of German battle- 
ships something very like the old close blockade could 
have been maintained. It is well known that it is not 
mines and submarines that close the Channel and the 
Sound to the German and British fleets. It is the fact 
that the operation of clearing these things away must 
expose the force doing it to battleship action. The con- 
verse also holds true. If there were no German battle- 
ships the operation of confining the German cruisers, 
destroyers, as well as the German submarines, within 
waters of comparatively narrow limits, by mines, nets, 
&c, might not have been impossible. Certainly the open- 
ing of the battle would have been comparatively simple. 
There are many kinds of operations in which it would be 
folly to risk a battle-fleet so long as the enemy's battle- 
fleet was in being. But with no hostile enemy fleet in 
existence a whole vista of new possibilities is opened 
up to naval and amphibious force. It is unnecessary to 
enumerate them. 

We may take it, then, as axiomatic that, if any chance 
of bringing the German Fleet to action was offered, it 
was the first business of the British Navy, and on purely 
military grounds, no less than those of economic and moral 
advantage, to force it to decisive action, and that very 
heavy losses indeed would be justified by complete success. 

But a further word must be added. If every admiral 
at every juncture is to regulate his action by nice calcu- 
lation of policy and chance, is there not a risk that the 
balancing of pros and cons may be pushed so far as to 



292 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

confuse the main issue ? It is not on these principles that, 
when it comes to fighting, brave men with an instinct for 
war do in fact act. It is almost true to say that the ex- 
ample of Hawke and Nelson, no less than those of the 
light cruiser and destroyer captains in the battle we are 
about to consider, prove that the best way of diminishing 
the risk of loss is to take the risk as boldly and as often 
as you get the chance. Something seems to be due to 
fighting for fighting's sake. What was it that Nelson 
said about no captain could go far wrong who laid his 
ship alongside an enemy's! or as Napoleon has it, "the 
glory and honour of arms should be the first consideration 
of a general who gives battle! " 

In summing up the situation on May 31, the elements 
appear to be as follows: The German Government was 
in double need of a stroke to restore the moral of its people. 
A Russian revival was possible, the British army in France 
and Flanders was growing to formidable dimensions, the 
blow at Verdun had failed. The German Government, 
and particularly the Imperial Navy, had been humiliated 
by the surrender to America, so that everything pointed 
to a stroke at sea, if one could be planned that did not 
involve too great a risk. Admiral Scheer and his officers 
of the High Seas Fleet were full of eagerness to justify 
themselves to their force. They believed the British 
naval strategy to be such that it would be possible for 
them to inveigle the fast division of the British Fleet into 
an action with greatly superior numbers, when serious 
damage might be inflicted on them. They counted, and 
with confidence, on Sir David Beatty's eagerness to fight, 
and they trusted to being able to defeat him before he 
could break off action or could be supported by forces 
with whom engagement would be hopeless. They relied 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 293 

upon their air scouts to save them from surprise, and had 
no intention of coming into contact with Sir John Jellicoe 
if it could possibly be avoided. At the same time, how- 
ever, they recognized that the defensive tactics which 
smoke screens and the new torpedo made possible would 
not only prevent contact with superior numbers being 
disastrous, they believed here, too, either that the 
British would avoid the risk of torpedo disaster, or that 
the keenness of the British Fleet for action must expose 
them to very formidable losses by under-water attack, 
while their gun-fire could be rendered harmless by the 
obscuration of the target and the manoeuvres the torpedo 
could force upon them. And in these conditions'the eva- 
sion of an artillery fight at decisive range should present 
no difficulties. Finally, such risks as were involved were 
well worth the incalculable enhancement of German 
prestige that would follow if a not -too-untruthful claim 
could be made to a naval victory. The world that has a 
natural sympathy with the weaker force would be inclined 
to regard even the escape of the German Fleet as some- 
thing very like a German success. 

It was the manifest duty of the British Fleet first to 
thwart any German naval design, whatever it might be, 
and, secondly, to remove from the theatre of war the only 
formidable sea force that the enemy possessed. For to 
do this would make a close investment of his ports possible, 
would to a large extent cut down the possibility of his sub- 
marine successes by mining them into their harbours and 
channels instead of netting them out of ours, would open 
the Baltic to British naval enterprise, and would set the 
whole resources of the Clyde and the Tyne free to pro- 
duce merchant shipping. 



CHAPTER XXr 

The Battle of Jutland (Continued) 

III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF FORCES 

In the afternoon of May 3 1 the main sea forces of Great 
Britain and Germany were all in the North Sea. The 
Grand Fleet, under the command of Sir John Jellicoe, 
accompanied by a squadron of battle-cruisers, two of light 
cruisers, and three flotillas of destroyers, were to the north; 
the Battle Cruiser Fleet — of two squadrons — three squad- 
rons of light cruisers, and four destroyer flotillas, supported 
by the Fifth Battle Squadron, all under the command 
of Sir David Beatty, were scouting to the southward. 

The British Fleet was out "in pursuance of the general 
policy of periodical sweeps through the North Sea." The 
disposition of the forces and the plan of operations were 
the Commander-in-ChiePs own. Neither was dictated 
from Whitehall. The despatches describing the operation 
do not — as some of those relating to the events off Heligo- 
land in August, 1914 — say that the ships were following 
Admiralty instructions. The fact has considerable im- 
portance in view of the fears expressed earlier in the spring 
that Whitehall was interfering with the Commander-in- 
Chiefs dispositions. Note also that the fleet was here 
in pursuit of the general policy followed since the early 
days of the war. This hunting for the enemy is not de- 
scribed as taking place at regular intervals, but as "peri- 
odic." These searching movements would be made at 

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295 



296 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

the times when there was a greater likelihood of there 
being an enemy to find. 

There was a considerable interval between the forces — 
just how great we do not exactly know. But at the point 
at which the story in the despatches opens, Sir David 
Beatty's force was steering northward, that is, toward 
the Grand Fleet. At 2 :20 Galatea, the flagship of Com- 
modore Alexander Sinclair, reported the presence of 
enemy vessels. The light cruisers were spread out on a 
line east and west, ahead of the battle-cruisers. When 
Sir David Beatty got news that the enemy had been 
sighted on the extreme right of his line of cruisers, he at 
once altered course from north to S.S.E., that is, rather 
more of a right angle and a half, steering for the Horn 
Reefs, so as to place his force between the enemy and his 
base. It is to be noted that the Vice-Admiral at once 
adopted not the movement that would soonest bring the 
enemy to action, but that which would compel him to 
action whether he wished it or not. Observe he does not 
wait to do this till he has ascertained the enemy's strength. 
A quarter of an hour later smoke was seen to the eastward 
— that would be on the port bow — which would confirm 
the Galatea s account that the enemy was still to the north 
of the line that Sir David Beatty was steering. The 
distance of the battle-cruisers from the Horn Reefs was 
such that the enemy's escape from action would still be 
impossible, even if he altered course to cut him off sooner. 
This, accordingly, he did, steering first due east and then 
northeast and, in less than an hour, sighted Von Hipper's 
force of five battle-cruisers, probably almost straight 
ahead. When, at 2:20, the battle-cruisers headed for the 
Horn Reefs, the First and Third Light Cruiser Squadrons 
changed their direction also without waiting for orders, 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 297 

and swept to the eastward, screening the battle-cruisers. 
The Fifth Battle Squadron, which we must suppose 
originally to have been on Sir David Beatty's left, was 
coming up behind the battle-cruisers as fast as possible. 
The Second Light Cruiser Squadron, leaving the screening 
functions to the First and Third, made full speed to take 
station ahead of the battle-cruisers, where two flotillas 
of destroyers were already. While these movements 
were proceeding, a seaplane was sent up from Engadine 
which, having to fly low on account of clouds, pushed to 
within 3,000 yards of the four light cruisers of Von Hipper's 
advance force. Full and accurate reports were thus re- 
ceived just before the enemy was sighted in the distance. 

At 2:20, when the enemy's scouting advanced craft 
were first seen by Galatea, Von Hipper was seemingly 
to the south of them, and according to the German account 
went north and east to investigate. While then Sir 
David Beatty was travelling southeast, east, and then 
northeast, we shall probably be right in supposing that 
Von Hipper was executing an approximately parallel 
series of movements out of sight to the northeast of him. 
Both advance forces were increasing their distance from 
their main forces. At any rate, neither was approaching 
his main force when they came into sight at 3 130, Von 
Hipper a few miles north of Sir David Beatty. 

What was the distance at this period that separated 
the battle-cruisers of each side from their supporting 
battle-fleets? At 3:30 the German battle-cruisers headed 
straight for their main fleet at full speed, and met them 
an hour and a quarter afterward. If Von Hipper's speed 
was 26 knots and Admiral Scheer's 18 — he had pre- 
Dreadnoughts with him, and it was not likely to have 
been greater — there would have been fifty-five sea miles 



29§ 



THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 



separating the German forces. According to the des- 
patch, Sir John Jellicoe at 3 130 headed his fleet toward 
Sir David Beatty, and came down at full speed. He 
came into contact with the battle-cruisers on their return 
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Beatty would by this time have returned approximately 
to the same latitude he was on at 3 :3c Had he then at 
3 130 closed Sir John Jellicoe at full speed, he would have 
come in contact with him in, say, fifty minutes. The 
British fleets at 3 130, then, may have been between forty 
and forty-five sea miles apart, against the German fifty- 
five. 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 299 

It has been said that both sides fell into a strategical 
error in dividing their forces. This criticism has been 
prominent in the neutral Press; but it arises from a con- 
fusion of thought. On neither side were the battle- 
cruisers considered as anything but scouting forces, which 
in all sea campaigns have been, because it is a necessity 
of the case, maintained at suitable distances from the 
main force. The only division of forces proper on the 
British side was the presence of four battleships with 
Sir David Beatty. But as we see from the despatch, 
for some reason a squadron of three of Sir David's battle- 
cruisers was with the main fleet, and the Fifth Battle 
Squadron seems to have been taking its place. 

The only evidences of a strategical blunder in the 
disposition would be, first, a failure of the chosen plan 
to bring the Germans to action, next a failure to defeat 
them when brought to action, because of inability to 
concentrate the requisite strength for the purpose at the 
critical point. It is surely a sufficient reply to say that 
the German Fleet was brought to action, and that any 
incompleteness in the victory arose, not from there being 
insufficient forces present, but owing to circumstances 
making it impossible to employ them to the greatest 
advantage. 

the action: first phase 

When the enemy was sighted at 3 130, Sir David formed 
his ships for action in a line of bearing, so that, in the 
northeasterly wind, the smoke of one ship should not 
interfere with the fire of the rest. His course was east- 
southeast, and he was converging on that of the enemy, 
who was steering rather more directly south. By the 
time the line was formed the range was about 23,000 



300 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

yards, and at twelve minutes to four had been closed to 
18,500, when both sides opened fire simultaneously. 
When the range had closed to about 14,000 yards or less, 
parallel courses were steered and kept until the end of 
this phase of the engagement. The Fifth Battle Squadron, 
consisting of four ships of the Queen Elizabeth class, under 
the command of Admiral Evan-Thomas, at the time 
when Sir David formed his battle-line, was about 10,000 
yards off — not straight astern of the battle-cruisers, but 
bearing about half a right angle to port. The course 
that would bring them immediately into the line of the 
Battle Cruiser Fleet, then, was not parallel to that steered 
by Sir David Beatty, but a course converging on to it. 
It was this that enabled them, with their inferior speed, 
to come into action at eight minutes past four, though 
only then at the very long range of 20,000 yards. 

The interval had been singularly unfortunate for the 
British side. Indefatigable (Captain Sowerby) had the 
misfortune to be hit by a shell in a vulnerable spot. The 
destruction of the ship was instantaneous, and almost 
the entire personnel, including the ship's very gallant 
Captain, was lost. An exactly similar misfortune later 
befell Queen Mary. Neither ship had, in any sense of 
the word, been overwhelmed by the gunfire of the enemy. 
Indeed, when Queen Mary went down, the enemy's 
fire, which had been singularly accurate and intense in 
the first phase of the action had, as the Vice-Admiral 
says in his despatch, slackened. The superior skill, due 
chiefly to the wider experience of the British fire-control 
organizations, had already begun to tell — the enemy's 
fire-control being evidently unable to survive the damage, 
and losses of action. 

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ture with Admiral Scheer 



301 



3 02 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

by one-sixth, and then by one-fifth of its number, so 
that he was now left with four ships against the German 
five. But three of these ships disposed of broadsides of 
13.4's, the fourth employing a gun equal to the most 
powerful in the German armament. In weight and power 
of broadside the British cruisers still had the advantage, 
and it is clear that their rate of fire was faster, and their 
aiming and range-keeping more effective. 

Just as the Fifth Battle Squadron came into action at 
ten minutes past four, a brisk and dramatic encounter 
took place between the light craft of the two sides. Two 
flotillas of destroyers and one squadron of light cruisers, 
it will be remembered, were stationed well ahead of the 
British flagship. Eight units of the Thirteenth Flotilla, 
together with two of the Tenth and two of the Ninth, had 
been designated for making an attack on the enemy's line 
as soon as an opportunity offered. The opportunity came 
at 4:15. A destroyer attack is of course a torpedo attack, 
and is delivered by the flotilla engaged in steering a course 
converging toward that of the enemy. The destroyers 
must be well ahead of their targets if the attack is to be 
effective, so that the torpedo and the ship attacked shall 
be steering toward each other. These boats proceeded 
then, at 4:15, to initiate this manoeuvre toward the enemy. 
It was almost simultaneously countered by an identical 
movement by the enemy, who had a considerable pre- 
ponderance of force — fifteen destroyers and a cruiser 
against the British twelve destroyers. These two forces 
met before either had reached a position for effecting its 
main purpose, viz., the torpedo attack on the capital ships. 
A very spirited engagement followed. It was a close- 
quarters affair, and was carried through by the British 
destroyers in the most gallant manner and with great 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 303 

determination. Two of the enemy's destroyers were 
sunk, and what was far more important, it was made 
quite impossible for him to carry through a torpedo attack. 
None of our boats went down. But just as the enemy's 
boats had been unable to get a favourable position for 
attacking our battle-cruisers, so, too, the English boats, 
delayed by this engagement, were unable to get the desired 
position on the enemy's bow for employing their torpedoes 
to the best advantage. Three of them, however, though 
unable to attack from ahead, pressed forward for a broad- 
side attack on Von Hipper's ships, and naturally came 
under a fierce fire from the secondary armament of these 
vessels. One of them, Nomad, was badly hit, and had to 
stop between the lines. She was ultimately lost. Nestor 
and Nicator held on between the lines until the German 
Battle Fleet was met. 

For a full half hour these two boats had been either 
fighting an almost hand-to-hand action with the enemy's 
boats, or had been under the close-range fire of Von Hip- 
per's battle-cruisers. They now found themselves faced 
by the German Battle Fleet. But they were at last in 
the right position for an attack. Both closed, in spite 
of the fire, to 3,000 yards and fired their torpedoes. It is 
believed that one hit was made. Nicator escaped and 
rejoined the Thirteenth Flotilla, but Nestor, though not 
sunk, was stopped, and had to be numbered amongst the 
losses when the action was over. 

While this had been going forward, the artillery action 
between the two squadrons of battle-cruisers continued 
fierce and resolute. Sir Evan-Thomas's battleships did 
their best with the rear of the enemy's line, but were unable 
to reduce the range below 20,000 yards, if, indeed, they 
were unable to prevent the enemy increasing it. At 4:18 



3 o 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

a second palpable evidence that the British fire was taking 
effect was afforded by the third of Von Hipper's ships 
bursting into flames. The first evidence was, of course, 
the falling off in the rate of the enemy's fire, and the still 
more marked deterioration in its accuracy. 

It will be remembered that the Second Light Cruiser 
Squadron, under Commodore Goodenough, had got to 
its action station ahead of Sir David Beatty's line a little 
while before the engagement opened with Von Hipper at 
half-past three. This squadron maintained its position 
well ahead, and at 4:38 reported the advent of Scheer 
with a German battle squadron from the south. They 
would then be from 20,000 to 24,000 yards off. Until 
Southampton sent in her message at 4:38, the British 
Admiral had no reason for knowing that the enemy Battle 
Fleet was out. Not that the knowledge would have 
affected the plan he actually carried out, for the immediate 
attack on Von Hipper was right in either event. But it 
was obvious that, with only four battle-cruisers, it was 
out of the question continuing the action as if the forces 
were equal. The Fifth Battle Squadron was out of range, 
and the Vice-Admiral's first business was to concentrate 
his force, and then to judge how to impose his will upon 
the enemy in the matter of forcing him up to action with 
the Grand Fleet. The junction with Admiral Evan- 
Thomas could obviously not be delayed; as obviously 
the manoeuvre was a dangerous one, for as each ship 
turned it would be exposed to the enemy's fire with- 
out being able to reply. Had only speed of junction to be 
considered, the battle-cruisers could have been turned 
together when the rear ship on the old course would have 
become the leading ship on the new. The turn could 
probably be accomplished in less than three minutes. But 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 305 

seriously as the German fire had depreciated, it was not 
a thing with which liberties could be taken. Sir David 
Beatty, therefore, turned his ships one by one, thus keep- 
ing three in action while the first was turning; two while 
the second was turning — the first and second coming into 
action on a reverse course as the third and fourth turned 
from the old. At no time, then, was the fire of the British 
squadron reduced below that of two ships. 

No sooner had Sir David turned than Von Hipper 
followed his example, and as the Vice-Admiral led up on 
the new course, he met Evan-Thomas with his four battle- 
ships directing a fierce fire on Von Hipper. These two 
squadrons were on opposite courses, and the change of 
range was rapid. The conditions for hitting were ex- 
tremely difficult. Evan-Thomas was not yet in sight 
of the German Battle Fleet, and the Vice-Admiral told 
him to turn, as he had done, and to form up behind him. 
By the time this manoeuvre was completed— that is, 
within a quarter of an hour of Sir David Beatty having 
begun his own turn — the head of Admiral Scheer's line 
had got within range, and a brisk action opened between 
the leading German ships and the rear ships on the 
British side. 

During this quarter of an hour, Commodore Good- 
enough in Southampton pushed south to ascertain the 
precise numbers and composition of the German force. 
It was of course of great moment, not only to the Vice- 
Admiral but to the Commander-in-Chief that the enemy's 
strength should be ascertained as accurately and as soon 
as possible. But to do this the Commodore had to take 
his squadron under the massed fire of the German 
Dreadnoughts. He held on until a range of about 13,000 
yards was reached and, having got the information he 



3 o6 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

wanted, returned to form up with the Cruiser Fleet on 
its northerly course. His squadron was hardly hit: for 
though the fire was intense, here, too, the change of range 
was rapid, and far too difficult for the German fire-control 
to surmount. 



CHAPTER XXII 
The Battle of Jutland (Continued) 

IV. THE SECOND PHASE 

The flotillas and light cruiser squadrons were now re- 
grouped — some ahead, some alongside of the battle- 
cruiser and battleship squadrons, and the whole steered 
to the northward, keeping approximately parallel to 
and well ahead of the German line. From the time when 
Scheer came into action at 4:57 until six o'clock, Sir David 
Beatty kept the range at about 14,000 yards. Both sides 
must have had some anxious moments during this critical 
hour. Sir David Beatty knew what Admiral Scheer did 
not — for the weather was too thick for the Zeppelins to 
give him the much-needed information — that he was 
falling back on Sir John Jellicoe, when of course over- 
whelming force could be brought to bear. His business 
was to keep Admiral Scheer in play, while exposing his 
ships, especially his battle-cruisers, as little as possible, 
consistent with their maintaining an efficient attack upon 
the enemy. Sir David was criticized for exposing his 
ships imprudently. Is this criticism well founded ? Von 
Hipper's battle-cruisers were at the head of the German 
line, but one had certainly fallen out of action by five 
o'clock, and one more was to leave the line in the course 
of this holding action. The battle-cruisers, however, 
did not affect the situation, for the German Fleet's speed 
was that of the pre-Dreadnoughts in the rear, and this 

307 



3 o8 THE BRITISH NAVY JN BATTLE 

could not have exceeded 18 knots and was probably 
less. But the slowest ship in Sir David Beatty's 
squadron could make at least 24. Nothing, therefore, 
could have been simpler than to have taken the whole 
force out of reach of Scheer's guns whenever he chose. 
Had there at any stage been the remotest chance of the 
lightly armoured battle-cruisers being exposed to smother- 
ing fire from the German battleships, the danger could 
have been averted by the expedient of putting on more 
speed. Beatty's main preoccupation, however, was not 
this. It was undoubtedly the fear that Scheer might 
retreat before the Grand Fleet could get up. He had, 
therefore, first to act as if he were a promising target, 
next to be ready with a counter-stroke if the Germans 
showed any sign of flight. How did he meet the first 
necessity of the position ? 

By keeping the range at 14,000 yards, at which the 
heavier projectile guns of the British artillery would have 
a distinct advantage over the German batteries, and by 
keeping so far ahead that it was impossible for Admiral 
Scheer to bring the lire of concentrated broadsides to bear, 
not only was an absolute inequality of gunnery condi- 
tions avoided, but it is probable that, so far as tactical 
disposition went, Sir David Beatty, as throughout the 
action, had so handled his ships as to be actually superior 
in fighting power over the forces he was engaging. I say 
"so far as tactical disposition was concerned," advisedly, 
because a new element came into action at this point 
which favoured first one and then the other, and was 
ultimately to make long-range gunfire altogether nugatory. 

Already between a quarter past four and half past, 
light mists had been driving down, and even before a 
quarter to five the outlines of Von Hipper's squadron 





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it toward the Grand Fleet 



3°9 



3 io THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

were becoming vague and shadowy to the British gun- 
layers. Between half-past five and six these conditions 
got very much worse. It handicapped the fire-control 
severely, and already they were beginning to feel, what 
the Commander-in-Chief says was a characteristic of the 
whole period during which the Grand Fleet was inter- 
mittently in action, viz., the extreme difficulty of using 
rangefinders in the shifting and indifferent light. How 
local and variable the mist was may be judged from the 
fact that the British line was not only free from mist, but 
was outlined sharply against the setting sun — thus giving 
a great advantage to the German rangefinders. It was 
this that largely neutralized the advantage which Sir 
David Beatty had so skilfully derived from the superior 
speed of his ships. No ships were lost on the British side 
during this part of the action. But it can hardly be 
doubted that had the conditions of visibility been the same 
for both sides, the head of the German line would have 
suffered more severely than it did from the Fifth Battle 
Squadron's 15-inch guns. But, as we have seen, one of 
the battle-cruisers had to haul out severely damaged, 
and certain others showed unmistakable evidence of having 
suffered severely. 

In this phase of the action, as in the first, the British 
destroyers made attacks on the German line, and it is 
believed that one ship, seen to be hopelessly on fire and 
emitting huge clouds of smoke and steam, owed her injuries 
to a torpedo fired by Moresby. 

What was Admiral Scheer's idea in following up the 
British squadron as he did ? He knew that he had not the 
speed which would enable him to catch it. It was almost 
impossible — for he was now the pursuing squadron — to 
hope for any success from a destroyer attack. There 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 311 

was a risk that he might be caught and forced to engage 
by the Grand Fleet. There are, it seems, two explana- 
tions of his action. In the first place, he knew that Von 
Hipper had already sunk two of the British vessels. It 
was worth a considerable effort to try and get more, and 
in face of these losses Sir David Beatty's movements may 
have looked so extremely like flight as to make him think 
that he had, to this extent, the upper hand, and that the 
British Admiral would be unlikely to risk his force again 
by seeking a close action. Apart from the risk of the 
Grand Fleet being out, then, there seemed to be every- 
thing to gain and nothing to lose by carrying on the chase. 

But is it quite certain that his action was altogether 
voluntary? What would Sir David Beatty's action have 
been had Scheer attempted to renounce the fight? There 
can be no hesitation in answering this question, for we 
only have to look at what Sir David actually did at six 
o'clock, when the Germans got news of the Grand Fleet's 
approach and had to change tactics immediately. We 
shall find in this the clue to what would have happened 
had Scheer attempted to change course and withdraw 
earlier in the action. 

The governing factors of the situation were, first, 
Beatty's superior speed; secondly, his superior concen- 
tration of gun power, and, lastly, the greater efficacy of his 
guns at long range. The difference between the speed 
of the slowest ships in the British fast division, say 24^ 
knots, and that of the slowest in the German jnain squad- 
ron, say 18, was 6| knots at least. 

If Scheer had attempted simply to withdraw, he must 
have reversed the course of his fleet, either by turning 
his ships together or in succession. In the first case, the 
simplest of manoeuvres would have brought the British 



3i2 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Fleet into the T position across the German rear. 
And with a six-knot advantage in speed, Sir David could 
even have attempted the final tactics of Admiral Sturdee 
at the Falkland Islands, and pursued the flying force with 
his four battle-cruisers, engaging them from one side, 
and the Fifth Battle Squadron attacking them from the 
other. So disastrous, indeed, must this manoeuvre have 
been to the Germans that it need not be considered as 
thinkable. The alternative was to lead round from the 
head of the line, when the choice would have arisen be- 
tween a gradual change of course and a reverse of course, 
viz., a sixteen-point turn. The objections to the sixteen- 
point turn were precisely similar to those to turning the 
fleet together, with, perhaps, the added objection that the 
British would have had two lines of ships to fire into 
instead of only one — an advantage which would not have 
been counterbalanced by the enemy keeping one or two 
broadsides bearing, for they would be the broadsides of 
ships under full helm, and it is highly improbable that 
their fire would have been efFective. When Scheer 
actually did break off battle, we shall find that he turned 
his fleet in succession through an angle of 13 5 . There 
were special reasons that made it obligatory he should do 
this, and special conditions which made it possible. Until 
he met the Grand Fleet, there was nothing to force him 
to turn, and the counter-stroke on which he relied to rob 
the turn of its chief dangers would not have been operative 
against the two squadrons of fast ships_ under Sir David 
Beatty's command. 

Had Scheer attempted such a turn as he actually made 
at 6:45, or had he initiated and continued such a ma- 
noeuvre as hejbegan at six o'clock, Beatty's speed advantage 
would have enabled him to maintain his dominating 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 313 

position ahead of the German line. He could either have 
manoeuvred to get round between Scheer and his bases, 
with a view to heading him north again, or, if he judged 
it hopeless to expect the Grand Fleet to reach the scene 
in daylight, could himself have reversed course and 
pounded the weak ships at the end of the German line 
unmercifully. 

In any event, while it would be an exaggeration to say 
that he had the whip-hand of the enemy, it is no exaggera- 
tion to say that his force was so formidable and so fast 
as to make escape from it anything but a safe or a simple 
problem. The utmost Scheer could have hoped for would 
have been a long defensive action until darkness made 
attack impossible, or winning the mine-fields made pur- 
suit too dangerous. • 

These considerations cannot be ignored in asking why 
it was that Scheer followed the British Admiral so obedi- 
ently in the hour and a quarter between 4:57 and 6 p.m. 
But still less must we forget that had Scheer known earlier 
that the Grand Fleet was out, he would certainly have 
preferred the risk of a pursuit by Beatty to the chance of 
having to take on the whole of Sir John Jellicoe's battle fleet. 

At twenty-five minutes to six Admiral Scheer began 

hauling round to the east, changing his course, that is to 

say, gradually away from the British line. Sir David 

supposes that he had by this time received information 

of the approach of the Grand Fleet. This information 

i might have come from Zeppelins, though in the weather 

I conditions this would seem to have been improbable; 

or it might have come from some of his cruisers, which 

J were well ahead, and had made contact with Hood's 

I scouts. But is this quite consistent with what Admiral 

i Jellicoe says of Hood's movements? 



3 i 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

"At 5:30 this squadron observed flashes of gun-fire 
and heard [the sound of guns to the southwestward. 
Rear-Admiral Hood sent Chester to investigate, and 
this ship engaged three or four enemy light cruisers at 
about 5:45" 

It is not stated that Rear-Admiral Hood saw the 
German light cruisers, and it seems improbable, then, 
that they saw him. Admiral Scheer could not have 
changed course at 5:35, because of the action of his scouts 
with Chester at 5:45. But her presence may have been 
signalled to him as soon as she was seen, and he may have 
concluded that the news could have but one significance, 
viz., that the Grand Fleet was coming down from the 
north. But is it altogether impossible that Scheer began 
his gradual easterly turn before suspecting that the 
Grand Fleet was out? Was he not, perhaps, already 
aware of the dangers of getting too far afield, and begin- 
ning that gradual turn which might keep Sir David 
Beatty's ships in play as long as daylight lasted, without 
giving the openings which a direct attempt at flight would 
offer? Whatever the explanation of the movements, 
the enemy began this gradual turn and Sir David turned 
with him, increasing speed, so as to maintain his general 
relation to the head of the German line. At ten minutes 
to six some of the Grand Fleet's cruisers were observed 
ahead, and six minutes later the leading battleships 
came into view. The moment for which every movement 
since 2:20 had been a preparation had now arrived — the 
Grand Fleet and the German Fleet were to meet. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

The Battle of Jutland (Continued) 

V. THE THREE OBJECTIVES 

The issue of the day would. now depend upon how the 
commanders of the three separate forces appreciated the 
tasks set to them; the principles that governed the plans 
for their execution; the efficiency of their command in 
getting those principles applied; the resolution and skill 
with which the several units executed each its share in 
the operations. It was easy enough to define the task 
of each leader. Sir David Beatty had so far completely 
justified what seemed the general strategic plan of the 
British forces. He had driven the German fast divisions 
back to their main fleet, he had held that fleet for an hour 
and a half, and had brought it within striking distance of 
the overwhelmingly superior main forces of his own side. 
He had lost two capital ships and three destroyers to 
achieve his end to this point. He had the sacrifice of 
some thousands of his gallant companions to justify. 
Neither a parade nor a "gladiatorial display," only the 
utter rout and destruction of the enemy's fleet, could pay 
that debt. His task was not, therefore, complete. He 
had to help the Grand Fleet to deliver its blow with the 
concentration and rapidity that would render it decisive. 
It was already obvious that rapidity would be vital. 
The weather conditions had been growing more and more 
unfavourable to the gunnery on which the British Fleet 

315 



316 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

would rely for victory. Everything pointed to the condi- 
tions growing steadily worse. It was a case of seizing 
victory quickly or missing it altogether. Had there been 
no shifting mists there would have been two and a half 
or three hours of daylight on which to count. But with 
lowering clouds and heavy vapours, clear seeing at 10,000 
or even 5,000 yards might be as impossible two hours 
before as two hours after sunset. Everything pointed, 
therefore, to this: the British attack would have to be 
instant — or it might not materialize at all. The Vice- 
Admiral commanding the Battle-Cruiser Fleet saw 
his duty clearly and simply. But to decide exactly 
what action he should take was a different thing alto- 
gether. 

No less clear was the task of the British Commander- 
in-Chief. Twelve miles away from him was the whole 
naval strength of the enemy, 150 miles from his mine- 
fields, more than 200 from his fleet bases. Against 
sixteen modern battleships, he himself commanded 
twenty-four — a superiority of three to two. His gun- 
power, measured by the weight and striking energy of 
his broadsides, must have been nearly twice that of the 
enemy; measured by the striking energy and the destruc- 
tive power of its heavier shells, it was greater still. Op- 
posed to the enemy's five battle-cruisers, there were four 
under the command of Sir David Beatty and three led 
by Rear-Admiral Hood. Against the six 18-knot pre- 
Dreadnoughts that formed the rear of the German Fleet, 
with their twenty-four 11-inch guns firing a 700-pound 
shell, there were Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas's four 25- 
knot ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron, carrying thirty- 
two 15-inch guns, whose shells were three times as heavy 
and must have been nine times as destructive. This 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 317 

force, vastly superior if it could be concentrated for its 
purpose, had to be deployed for a blow which, if simul- 
taneously delivered at a range at which the guns would 
hit, must be final in a very brief period. 

The German Admiral could never have had the least 
doubt as to his task. His business was to save his fleet 
from the annihilation with which it was manifestly 
menaced. So far fortune had been kind. The British 
Battle-Cruiser Fleet had done what the Germans had 
expected it to do. It had engaged promptly and de- 
terminedly and its losses, surprisingly enough, had been 
suffered, not while it was holding a force greatly superior 
to itself, but while engaging Von Hipper, whose ships 
were less numerous and more lightly armed. Though 
Scheer did not expect an encounter with the Grand Fleet, 
he was very far from being unprepared, should it come. 
Accordingly, when at six o'clock he realized that the 
supreme moment had arrived, he was probably as little 
in doubt as to his method of executing his task, as to the 
character of the task itself. 

THE TACTICAL PLANS 

Admiral Scheer s tactics 

The tactics of Admiral Scheer were a development 
and an extension of those of Von Hipper on January 24 
of the previous year. If his task was to break off action 
as soon as possible and to keep out of action until darkness 
made fleet fighting impossible, means must be found of 
thwarting or neutralizing the attack of the British Fleet 
while it lasted, of evading that attack at the earliest 
moment, and of preventing its resumption. He could 
only neutralize the attack in so far as he could thwart 



318 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

the fire-control and aiming of the enemy by the constant 
or intermittent concealment of his ships by smoke. He 
could only evade attack by preventing the overwhelming 
force against him being brought within striking distance. 
Recall for a moment the lessons of the Dogger Bank. 
In his retreat Von Hipper had put his flotillas to a double 
task. For the first two hours of that engagement he had 
checked the speed of his battle cruisers to cover Bluecher. 
When the British Fleet had so gained on him that its 
artillery became effective, he realized that the case of 
Bluecher was hopeless and that, unless prompt measures 
were taken, the case of the battle cruiser would be little 
better. Bluecher was, therefore, abandoned to her fate 
and Derfflinger, Seydlitz, and Moltke concealed by smoke. 
Simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, a veritable 
shoal of torpedoes was launched across the path on which 
Lion and her consorts were advancing. The smoke 
baffled the gun-layers, the changed course forced on the 
battle-cruisers baffled the fire-control. The Germans 
gained immunity from gunfire and, in the pause, changed 
course and got a new start in the race for home. Then 
the first of a succession of rendezvous for submarines 
placed on the pre-arranged line of the German retreat, 
repeated this tactic of diversion just before Lion was 
disabled. The intervention — an hour later — of a second 
protecting picket of submarines was decisive, for, on 
realizing their presence, the officer who had succeeded 
Sir David in command broke off pursuit. It was on 
these tactics on a greatly extended scale and developed 
no doubt by assiduous study and repeated rehearsal, 
that Scheer now had to rely. 

The circumstances of the moment were exceptionally 
favourable for their employment. The conditions of 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 319 

atmosphere that made long-range gunnery difficult, made 
the establishment of smoke screens to render it more diffi- 
cult still, exceptionally easy. The wind had dropped, 
the air was heavy and vaporous, the ships were running 
from one bank of light fog into another. It was a day on 
which smoke would stay where it was made, clinging to 
the surface of the sea, mingling with and permeating 
the water-laden atmosphere. Further, these were just 
the conditions in which, were a torpedo attack delivered 
at a fleet by the fast destroyer flotillas, the threat would 
have an element of surprise that would be lacking in clear 
vision. Such menaces, then, should they have any 
deterrent effect on the enemy's closing, would be likely 
to have a maximum effect. The respite from gunfire, 
the delay in the re-formation of the fleet for pursuit, 
each could be the longest possible. 

Two considerations must have caused Scheer the 
gravest possible anxiety. In the first place, smoke screens 
would not protect the van of his fleet. What if the British 
used their speed to concentrate ships there and crush it? 
Secondly, as destroyer attacks could only be delivered 
from a point in advance of the course of the squadrons it 
was hoped to injure or divert, the method on which he 
relied, first for breaking off from, and then evading, action 
could not be used until he had the British Fleet on his 
quarter or astern. Now at six o'clock the British Fleet 
was dead ahead of him. Its fleet's speed must have been 
three, and may have been four, knots greater than his own. 
He had four powerful ships, six or seven knots faster still, 
on his port bow at a range of only 14,000 yards, supported 
by a 25-knot squadron only three knots slower and of 
enormous gun power. How was he to turn a line of 
twenty-one ships to get the whole of this force behind 



3 2o THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

him, without some portion of it being overwhelmed in 
the process ? For to turn in succession would be to leave 
first the centre and the rear, and then the rear entirely 
unsupported as the leading ships escaped. As we have 
seen in a previous chapter, until the enemy's artillery was 
neutralized, it was out of the question to do anything but 
to turn on a flat arc, so that so long as it was necessary or 
possible, all the ships should act in mutual support. The 
crux of the situation was this: The Grand Fleet was 
but twelve miles off, a distance that could be shortened 
to easy gun range in ten or twelve minutes. What if the 
whole of this force were in a quarter of an hour brought 
parallel to, and well ahead of, his own? To engage it 
defensively by gun power would be useless for the odds 
were hopeless. To turn the head of the line sharply 
would be to purchase a precarious safety for the van by the 
certain immolation of the centre and the rear. Scheer 
must have seen that, were things to develop along this 
line, he would have no choice but to turn his whole fleet 
together, a dangerous and desperate manoeuvre, but 
permissible because the time would have come for a 
sauve qui petit. 

But while these considerations may have caused him 
some anxiety, there were other elements to reassure him. 
Years before the war, the Germans had discovered and 
grasped what seemed the fundamental strategic idea that 
had shaped British naval strategy. It was that the role 
of our main sea forces in war was to be primarily defensive. 
Our fleet was to consist of units individually more power- 
ful than those of competing navies. As to numbers, 
we were aiming at possessing these on an equality with 
the two next largest Powers combined. It was a policy 
that permitted of an overwhelming concentration against 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 321 

the most powerful of our competitors, the Germans, while 
still maintaining substantial forces the world over. It was 
a presumption of this policy that the use of the sea would 
in war be ceded to us by our enemies, and would remain 
virtually undisturbed until our main forces were not only 
attacked but defeated. Numbers and individual power 
made an attack by inferior forces seem the most remote 
of all contingencies, and defeat impossible. 

From this theory the Germans derived a corollary. 
It was that, as the British ideal was concerned not pri- 
marily with victory, but in avoiding defeat, we should 
probably not face great risks to destroy an enemy — and 
obviously no enemy could be destroyed without great 
risks — but rather would be chiefly preoccupied with 
averting the destruction, not only of our whole fleet, but 
even of such a proportion of it as would deprive us of that 
pre-eminence in numbers on which we seemed chiefly to 
rely. Hence, in the preamble of the last Navy Bill which 
the Government got the Reichstag to accept before the 
war, it was plainly stated that the naval policy of the 
German Higher Command did not aim at possessing a 
fleet capable of defeating the strongest fleet in the world, 
but would be satisfied with a force that the strongest fleet 
could not defeat, except at a cost that would bring it so 
low that its world supremacy would be gone. The under- 
lying military conception was that the group then con- 
trolling the British Navy would not fight, and the under- 
lying political conception that, should this group be re- 
placed by leaders of a more aggressive complexion, the 
price we should pay for a sea victory would be a combina- 
tion of the world's other sea forces against us, they being 
prompted to this by their long-felt jealousy of Great 
Britain's navalism. 



322 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

In May, 1916, the bottom had fallen out of the political 
argument. There was no naval Power that was the least 
jealous of Great Britain. The submarine campaign had 
disgusted all with Germany's sea ethics, and the whole 
world would have rejoiced had sea victory, which was 
necessary before the submarine could be finally defeated, 
been won. But on the military argument the Germans 
were on surer ground. They had certain substantial 
reasons for believing that they had not misread the 
psychology of our Higher Naval Command. Indeed, if 
Jutland left them or the world in any doubt about the 
matter, their interpretation was to receive the most striking 
of all confirmations by a statesman who had not only 
been First Lord of the Admiralty, but had personally 
selected the Commander-in-Chief on this eventful day, 
and had no doubt been a party to, if he had not inspired, 
the strategy which the Grand Fleet was to observe. Mr. 
Churchill left the world in no uncertainty at all that, in 
his opinion — which, presumably, was that not only of the 
Boards over which he had presided, but of those from 
whom it had been inherited — the British Fleet, without a 
victorious battle, enjoyed all the advantages that the 
most crushing of victories could give us, and that it was 
for the Germans and not for us to attempt any alteration 
in the position at sea. Beyond this, however, Scheer 
not only had it in his favour that the British Commander- 
in-Chief might, under such inspiration, hesitate about 
the risks inseparable from seeking a rapid decision at 
short range; he seemed to have a definite and official 
confirmation of a further theory, viz., that to avoid a 
certain form of risk was almost an axiom of official British 
doctrine. Von Hipper's escape at the Dogger Bank, 
unexplained it is true in Sir David Beatty's despatch, 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 323 

had been complacently attributed by the British Admir- 
alty to the unexpected presence of enemy submarines. 
The immediate abandonment of the field in the presence 
of this form of attack, so far from being made the subject 
of Admiralty disapproval, seems to have been endorsed 
by the continuous employment of the officer responsible. 
Scheer could then look forward to his torpedo attack not 
only as holding a menace over the British Fleet that might 
endanger its numerical superiority. It seemed to be a 
menace specifically accepted as one not in any circum- 
stances to be encountered. 

Still, for all that, there was uncertainty in the matter. 
The sport of bull-fighting owes its continuance solely to 
the fact that the instincts of each brute playmate in 
that cruel game are exactly identical with those of every 
other. However busy any bull may be with a tossed 
and disembowelled horse, it is a matter of mathematical 
certainty that a red cloak dangled before his eyes will 
divert him from goring the rider. The animal's reactions 
to each well-known pin-prick or provocation are inevita- 
ble. The safety of every toreador, piccador, and matador 
depends not on their power of meeting the unexpected, 
but upon the rapidity, deftness, and agility with which 
they can first time the movements which long experience 
has taught them to expect, and then execute the counter- 
stroke or evasion which an old-established art has pre- 
scribed. Scheer, it seems to me, showed something more 
than rashness in relying on a German analysis of our naval 
mentality, and upon a single instance — and endorsement — 
of that mentality in action, as if it established a rule of 
conduct as irrevocable as instinct. But, then, it must be 
understood, he had no choice. 



3 2 4 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Sir David Beatty's Tactics 

At six the Grand Fleet was five miles to the north, 
approximately twelve miles from the enemy. It could 
not come into action in less than a quarter of an hour. 
The speed of Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, and New Zea- 
land was twenty-seven knots, at least eight, possibly 
nine or even ten knots faster than that of the enemy. 
The head of the enemy's line bore southeast from the 
flagship. Scheer, already aware of Sir John Jellicoe's 
approach, was beginning his eastward turn. Beatty 
realized that at full speed he could head the German Fleet, 
so that by the time the Grand Fleet's deployment was 
complete, he would be in a commanding position on the 
bow of the enemy's van. It would probably not be 
possible for Evan-Thomas to gain this position, too. But 
there was no reason why he should. Assuming Sir 
David's purpose to be the realization of the most ele- 
mentary of tactical axioms, viz. to strike as nearly as 
possible simultaneously with all the forces in the field, 
Evan-Thomas would be just as useful at one end of the 
line as the other. The twenty-four ships of the Grand 
Fleet, led by the battle cruisers and with the four Queen 
Elizabeths as a rear squadron, would outflank the enemy 
at both ends of his line. 

The realization of the plan would depend entirely upon 
the pace of the Grand Fleet in getting into action. Had 
all the divisions of the Grand Fleet kept their course at 
full speed until reaching the track of Sir David Beatty's 
squadron, the starboard division would have cut that 
line in about ten minutes and the port division in about 
twelve and a half to thirteen. There would have been 
an interval of five miles between the leading ships. Even 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 325 

at twenty-seven knots the four battle-cruisers led by Lion 
could hardly have got clear of the port division and, to 
avoid collision, all would have had to ease their speed 
slightly. But undoubtedly at 6:15 or, at least, 6:20, 
a line might have been formed exactly in Sir David 
Beatty's track. Had this line followed him as he closed 
down after Hood at 6:25 the enemy would have been 
completely outflanked at both ends of his line and even 
surrounded at its head. There would have been half 
an hour between the Grand Fleet getting into action and 
the failure of the light. It is difficult to suppose that, at 
ranges of from 1 1,000 yards to 8,ooo, the guns of the Grand 
Fleet could not have beaten the High Seas Fleet decisively. 
Scheer could not have turned. His choice would have 
been between annihilation and a flight pele-mele. 

Not only does it seem that some such deployment as 
this was manifestly possible; it looks as if it was exactly 
this deployment that Admiral Beatty had expected. On 
any other supposition his manoeuvre in throwing first 
his own and then Hood's battle cruisers into a short-range 
fight with the Germans was to run the gravest risks of 
disaster, without any high probability of justifying it by 
a final defeat of the enemy. If he expected the Grand 
Fleet to deploy on to his course and so come into action 
with its entire strength, possibly within fifteen, certainly 
within twenty minutes of the enemy being sighted, 
then to have incurred the loss, not of one but of half of 
his and Hood's ships would have been amply justified. 

The manoeuvre he executed — judged not as a self- 
contained evolution but as part of a large plan — was, of 
course, one of the most brilliant and original in the history 
of the naval war. For the first time for more than two 
thousand years two fleets met of which a section of one 



326 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

had nearly a 50 per cent, superiority in speed over the 
other. This fast squadron was sent at top speed to hold 
and envelop the enemy's van. It was calculated to, and 
it did, arrest that van by sinking the leading ship and 
throwing the remainder into confusion. It was not a 
movement that interfered with the deployment of the 
Grand Fleet in the least degree. It was one, on the con- 
trary, that would have covered it most effectively, and 
to a great extent must have concealed its character from 
the enemy. But, further, being carried through at a 
speed which probably exceeded that which any enemy 
flotilla could maintain in the open sea, the manoeuvre 
must have made it impossible for Scheer to get his des- 
troyers into the right position for a torpedo attack, either 
upon the deploying ships or upon the Grand Fleet once 
deployed. For to attack to advantage, the flotillas 
must have been brought up ahead of the British battle- 
cruisers, a manifest impossibility. Had the Grand 
Fleet as a whole, then, been in action in Sir David Beatty's ; 
wake from 6:20 on, it is almost certain that, with all his 
fleet in action at short range, against guns almost twice 
as numerous as his own and more than three times 
as powerful Scheer could not have ventured upont 
changing the course of his fleet at all. He could not 
have done so, that is to say, while attempting to keep) 
his ships in line. He might, as we have seen, have turned! 
all his ships together in undisguised flight, he could not: 
have kept them in fighting formation while withdrawing? 
from a fight in these circumstances. 

Sir John Jellicoe's Tactics 

Before speculating as to the plans or discussing the 
tactics of the British Commander-in-Chief, two factor 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 327 

which influenced the situation must be kept in mind. 
The first is, that the positions of the two fleets and of the 
enemy had been the subject of a forecast by dead reckon- 
ing in both flagships. It is to be supposed that Sir 
David Beatty kept Admiral Jellicoe informed from time 
to time of the position, speed, and course of his fleet and 
of the enemy, and that from these data the lines of ap- 
proach had been calculated. Each flagship made its 
own calculations and, being made by dead reckoning, 
there was a discrepancy between the two, which the 
Commander-in-Chief describes as inevitable. It resulted 
from this that both were equally surprised when, at four 
minutes to six, Lion and Marlborough came within sight 
of each other. Whatever plan of action was adopted 
could not, if it was intended to meet the situation of the 
moment, have been the subject of long forethought or 
preparation. 

The second factor was the difficulty of seeing any- 
thing at long range. This, in the first place, had pre- 
vented any rectification of the misunderstanding as to 
positions, such as might easily have been done had the 
scouting cruisers of the two fleets come into sight earlier. 
It followed, next, that the Commander-in-Chief of the 
Grand Fleet did not probably see a single ship in the 
enemy's line until ten or twelve minutes after seeing the 
leading ship of the British Battle-Cruiser Fleet. His 
plan of deployment, then, orders for which must have 
been given some minutes before the deployment was 
complete, could not have been based upon his own judg- 
ment of the situation after seeing the enemy, but must 
have been dictated, either by some general principle of 
tactics applied to the information as to the enemy s position, 
speed, and course, as given by the Vice-Admiral, or it must 



328 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BA1TLE 

have been part of a plan suggested by the Vice- Admiral. 
There is nothing in the despatch to say whether Sir David 
Beatty communicated anything more to the Commander- 
in-Chief than the bearing and distance, first, of the 
enemy's battle cruisers, then of his battleships. But 
it seems irrational to suppose that Sir David did not 
announce what he intended to do or failed to suggest 
how best he could be supported. 

If the despatches are silent as to the nature of Sir 
David Beatty's plan, they are equally silent about the 
Commander-in-Chief's. We are told simply that he 
formed his six divisions into a line of battle and are left 
to infer the character and the direction of the deployment 
from internal evidence. The facts, so far as they can be 
gathered from the despatch seem to be as follows: 

The Grand Fleet came upon the scene in six divisions 
on a S.E.-by-S. course. This means that the six divisions 
were parallel with the leading ships in line-abreast, with 
an interval of approximately a mile between each division. 
A line drawn through the leading ships and continued 
to the west would have cut the line of Sir David Beatty's 
course after six o'clock, if that also had been similarly 
continued, making an angle of about 33 degrees. The 
division on the extreme right, led by Marlborough, flag- 
ship of Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, sighted Sir David 
Beatty's squadron at six o'clock. At the same time Sir 
David reported the position of the enemy's battle-cruisers, 
three of which were still at the head of the German line. 
The speed of the Grand Fleet was probably at least 
twenty knots, if not twenty-one. The six divisions seem 
to have continued their former course for ten or twelve 
minutes, when all the leading ships turned eight points — 
or a right angle — together to port, the second, third, 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 329 

and fourth ships in each division following their leaders 
in succession, so that, very few minutes after the leading 
ship had turned, the fleet would be on a line at right angles 
to its former course, and steering N.E. by E. If the lead- 
ing ship continued on the new course, the fleet would then 
be heading at an angle of 56 degrees away from the enemy. 
A fleet so deployed would now be brought into action by 
the leading ship turning again, either to a course parallel 
with the enemy or converging towards it. 

It seems probable that it was some such manoeuvre as 
this that took place, from the fact that the starboard 
(or right hand) division, which became the rear division 
after deployment, got into action so early as 6:17, at a 
range of 11,000 yards, that is, a thousand yards nearer 
to the enemy than Sir David Beatty's track, while the 
port division, now the leading, did not open fire till some 
time after 6:30, when, as we learn from the despatch, the 
British fleet was on the bow of the enemy. This means 
that the courses were parallel, but that the leading British 
divisions were well ahead of the enemy. Both fleets, in 
other words, were still steering to the east. The track of 
the Grand Fleet was, therefore, parallel, not only to that 
of the enemy, but to that of Sir David Beatty up to 6:25, 
but by some considerable amount, probably 2,000 yards 
farther from the High Seas Fleet. At 6:50 the leading 
battle squadron was 6,000 yards N.N.W. from Lion. The 
Grand Fleet had not formed up astern of the Battle- 
Cruiser Fleet. It had not come into action as a unit 
simultaneously. It had not deployed either on the 
enemy or on the British fast division. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

*The Battle of Jutland (Continued) 

VI. THE COURSE OF THE ACTION 

What in fact happened was this. Beatty, as we have 
seen, had led due east at six o'clock, closing the enemy 
from 14,000 yards to 12,000 yards, and was overhauling 
the head of his line rapidly. At 6 :20 Hood, in Invincible, 
with Inflexible and Indomitable, was seen ahead returning 
from a fruitless search for the Germans, which he had 
made to the southwest an hour before. Hood was one 
of Beatty's admirals with the Battle-Cruiser Fleet tem- 
porarily attached to the Grand Fleet. When, therefore, 
his old Commander-in-Chief ordered him to take station 
ahead, he had not the slightest difficulty in divining his 
leader's intentions. It was characteristic of this force 
that the rear-admirals and commodores in command of 
the unit squadrons acted without orders throughout the 
day. Hood formed before the Lion and led down straight 
on the German line. By 6:25 he had closed the range 
to 8,000 yards and had Lutzow, Von Hipper's flagship, 
under so hot a fire that she was disabled and abandoned 
almost immediately. By an unfortunate chance his own 
flagship, Invincible, was destroyed by the first and almost 
the only shell that hit her, the Rear-Admiral and nearly 
all his gallant companions being sent to instant death. 
But their work was done and the van of the German fleet 
was crumpled up. 

*For diagrams illustrating this chapter, see end of book. 

330 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 331 

Scheer by this time had had his fleet on an easterly 
course for five and thirty minutes, waiting for the op- 
portunity to turn a right angle or more, so as to retreat 
under the cover of his torpedo attacks. Up to this time 
the main body of his fleet had only been under fire for a 
brief interval, during which the rear division of the Grand 
Fleet had been in action. Scheer had, no doubt, watched 
the deployment of the Grand Fleet and had realized that 
the method chosen had not only given him already a 
quarter-of-an-hour's respite, but had supplied him with 
that opportunity for counter-attack and the evasion it 
might make possible, which he had been looking for. 
The battle cruisers were well away to the east. The van 
and centre of the Grand Fleet, though well on his bows, 
were only just beginning to open fire. 

It is probable that the van was now converging towards 
him and shortening the range. Scheer was trying to 
make the gunnery as difficult as possible by his smoke 
screens, but probably soon realized that, if the range was 
closed much more, his fleet would soon be in a hopeless 
situation. At about a quarter to seven, therefore, he 
launched the first of his torpedo attacks. This had the 
desired effect. "The enemy," says the Commander-in- 
Chief, "constantly turned away and opened the range 
under the cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens 
as the effect of British fire was felt." "Opening the 
range" means that the object of the torpedo attacks had 
been attained. For a quarter of an hour or more the 
closing movement of the Grand Fleet was converted 
into an opening movement. Scheer had prevented the 
close action that he dreaded. He had gained the time 
needed to turn his whole force from an easterly to a south- 
westerly course. 



332 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

Sir David Beatty's account of his movements up to now 
is singularly brief. "At six o'clock," he says, "I altered 
course to east and proceeded at utmost speed. . . At 
6:20 the Third Battle Squadron bore ahead steaming 
south towards the enemy's van. I ordered them to take 
station ahead. . . . At 6:25 I altered course to E.S.E. 






<3eaf£v 
a£6~10 




CrcmdTleee\XK 






Germanl&n\ 








Crerzaan *v 
Vana£6-30\ 



ilGennaa&n 



A. Battle-Cruiser Fleet; B. Grand Fleet; C. German Fleet 

Sketch plan of the action from 6 p. m. when the Grand Fleet prepared to 

deploy, till 6:50 when Admiral Scheer delivered his first massed torpedo 

attack 



in support of the Third Battle-Cruiser Squadron, who were 
at this time only 8,000 yards from the enemy's leading 
ship." Nothing is said of his movements in the next 
twenty minutes. "By 6:50," he continues, "the battle- 
cruisers were clear of our leading Battle Squadron, then 
bearing N.N.W. three miles from Lion. 19 {Lion was now 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 333 

third ship in the line). "I ordered the Third Battle 
Cruiser Squadron to prolong the line astern and reduced 
to eighteen knots." There was nothing now to hurry for. 
The daylight action was, in fact, over. For that matter 
good visibility was at an end. From 6:0 to 6:50, though 
never perfect, it had been more favourable to us than to 
the enemy. Could the British forces have been concen- 
trated for united effort during this period, what might 
not have resulted? But from 6:0 to 6:17 Scheer had been 
engaged by Sir David Beatty's four battle-cruisers only. 
For a short period after 6:17 it was engaged by some ships 
of the rear division as well. From 6:30 till the torpedo 
attacks broke up the Grand Fleet's gunnery, it was en- 
gaged intermittently and at longer range by all three of 
the main squadrons. But by this time Sir David Beatty 
had passed ahead, and the survivors of the enemy's van 
had begun their turn. 

THE GERMAN RETREAT 

The next phase of the action was a fruitless chase of the 
enemy from seven o'clock until 8:20. "At J:6," says 
Sir David Beatty, "I received a signal that the course of 
the fleet was south. . . . We hauled round gradually 
to S.W. by S. to regain touch with the enemy (who were 
lost to sight at about 6:50), and at 7:14 again sighted them 
at a range of about 1 5,000 yards. . . . We re-engaged 
at 7:17 and increased speed to twenty-two knots. At 
7:32 my course was S.W. speed eighteen knots, the leading 
enemy battleship bearing N.W. by West. ... At 
7:45 p.m. we lost sight of them." 

The two quotations I have made from Sir David 
Beatty's despatch divide themselves naturally in this 
way. The first deals with the plan he had attempted to 



334 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

make possible and to share, the second describes his course 
after that plan had proved abortive. Between them they 
make it clear that Sir David kept an easterly course at 
full speed from six o'clock till 6:25. He then turned a 
quarter of a right angle to the south, that is, to his right, 
and held this course for twenty-five minutes when, having 
lost sight of the enemy and, the Grand Fleet being still 
three miles from him, he dropped his speed from say 
twenty-seven or twenty-eight knots and awaited develop- 
ments. As soon as he heard that the Grand Fleet, after 
recovering from the first torpedo attack, had turned south 
in pursuit of the Germans, he increased his speed by four 
knots, hauled round to the southwest, found and re- 
engaged the enemy at 7:14. By this time, as we have 
seen, the enemy's whole line would be following the lead- 
ing ships on a southwesterly course, so that Sir David 
Beatty's movements between 6:0 and 7:14 were approx- 
imately parallel to those of the enemy. He had been able 
to keep parallel by availing himself of his ten or eleven 
knots' superiority between 6:0 and 6:50 and by his four 
or five knots' superiority between 7:0 and 7:14. 

On hearing that at last he was to be supported, Sir 
David Beatty raised his battle-cruiser speed to twenty- 
two knots and made a last effort to get in touch with the 
retiring enemy. He soon found and engaged him at a 
range of 15,000 yards and contact coincided with a sudden 
improvement in the seeing conditions. Four ships only, 
two battle-cruisers and two battleships, evidently the van 
of the enemy's line, were visible, and these were at once 
brought under a hot fire, which caused the enemy to 
resort to smoke-screen protection, and, under cover of this 
he turned away to the west. At 7:45 the mist came down 
again and the enemy was lost to sight. The First and 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 335 

Third Light Cruiser Squadrons were then spread out. 
They swept to the westward and located the head of the 
enemy's line again, and at 8:20 the battle-cruisers — whose 
course had been southwest up to now — changed course 
to west and got into action apparently with the same 
four ships as before, at the short range of 10,000 yards. 
The leading ship soon turned away emitting high flames 
and with a heavy list to port. She had been brought 
under the fire of Lion, Princess Royal set fire to one of 
the two battleships. Indomitable and New Zealand 
engaged a third and sent her out of the line, heeling over 
and burning also. Then the mist came down once more 
and the enemy was last seen by Falmouth at twenty-two 
minutes to nine. 

The Commander-in-Chief is far less explicit as to the 
occasions on which his ships got into action. The action 
between the battle fleets, he said, lasted intermittently 
from 6:17 to 8:20. At 6:17 we know that Burney's divi- 
sion got into action, and at 6:30 until some time up to 
7:20 the other divisions also. But no details of any kind 
of encounters later than that are mentioned. It is clear 
that after 6:50 the weather made any continuous engaging 
quite impossible. There was a second torpedo attack 
during the stern chase — and once more the enemy "opened 
the range." 

THE NIGHT ACTIONS AND THE EVENTS OF JUNE I 

The form that the deployment actually took, and the 
fifteen minutes' respite from attack won by the torpedo 
attack at 7:40 which enabled Scheer to get his whole 
fleet on to a southeasterly from an easterly course were, 
tactically speaking, the explanation of the German escape 
on the 31st. It is more difficult to understand exactly 



336 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

why they were not brought to action on the following day. 
Very little is actually known of what happened in the 
course of the night, and the despatches throw little light 
on it because, though many incidents are mentioned, 
very few have any definite hour assigned to them. The 
facts, so far as they can be gathered, are as follows: 

The Grand Fleet seems to have lost sight of the Ger- 
mans altogether after 8 :20 and Sir David Beatty's scouts 
saw the last of their enemy at 8:38. The Vice-Admiral 
continued searching for forty minutes longer and then fell 
back east and to the line which was the course of the 
Grand Fleet when he was last in touch with it by wireless. 
Both fleets seem to have proceeded some distance south 
and to have waited for the night in the proximity of a 
point about equi-distant — eighty miles — from the Horn 
Reef and Heligoland. One destroyer flotilla, the Thir- 
teenth, and one light cruiser squadron were retained with 
the capital ships for their protection. The rest were 
disposed, as the Commander-in-Chief says," in a position 
in which they could afford protection to the fleet and at 
the same time be favourably situated for attacking the 
enemy's heavy ships." They must have been placed 
north of the British forces. No British battle or battle- 
cruiser squadron was attacked during the night, but the 
Second Light Cruiser Squadron, which was disposed in 
the rear of the battle line, got into action at 10:20 with five 
enemy cruisers, and at 11:30 Birmingham sighted several 
heavy ships steering south or west-southwest. The 
Thirteenth Flotilla, which seems to have been associated 
with the Second Light Cruiser Squadron astern of the 
battle fleet, reported a large vessel half an hour after mid- 
night, which opened fire on three of the flotilla, disabling 
Turbulent. At 2:35 another, Moresby, sighted four 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 337 

pre-Dreadnoughts and had a shot at them with a torpedo/ 
We are not told the course they were steering. 

The destroyers sent out to attack the enemy got several 
opportunities for using their torpedoes, three of which 
were probably successful, and a fourth attack resulted in 
the blowing up of a ship. The despatch does not say, 
however, whether the destroyers were able to keep in 
wireless communication with the main fleet, whether any 
were instructed to keep contact with the enemy and just 
hang on to him till daylight; whether, in fact, either the 
Commander-in-Chief or Sir David Beatty had any authen- 
tic information at daylight as to the enemy's formation 
or movements. Champion's encounter with four de- 
stroyers at 3 130 is the only occurrence we hear of after 
daybreak, until the engagement of a Zeppelin at 4:0 a.m. 
All we are told is to be gathered from these words of 
Lord Jellicoe's: 

"At daylight, June 1, the Battle Fleet, being then to the 
southward and westward of the Horn Reef, turned to the 
northward in search of enemy vessels and for the purpose 
of collecting our own cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers. 
. . . The visibility early on June 1 (three to four miles) 
was less than on May 31, and the torpedo-boat destroyers, 
being out of visual touch, did not rejoin until 9 a.m. The 
British Fleet remained in the proximity of the battlefield 
and near the line of approach to German ports until 11 
a.m. on June 1, in spite of the disadvantage of long dis- 
tances from fleet bases and the danger incurred in waters 
adjacent to enemy coasts from submarines and torpedo 
craft. The enemy, however, made no sign, and I was re- 
luctantly compelled to the conclusion that the High Sea 
Fleet had returned into port. Subsequent events proved 
this assumption to have been correct. Our position must 



33 8 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

have been known to the enemy 9 as at 4 a.m. the fleet engaged 
a Zeppelin for about five minutes, during which time she 
had ample time to note and subsequently report the posi- 
tion and course of the British Fleet. The waters from the 
latitude of the Horn Reef to the scene of the action were 
thoroughly searched. ... A large amount of wreck- 
age was seen, but no enemy ships, and at 1 115 p.m., it being 
evident that the German Fleet had succeeded in return- 
ing to port, course was shaped for our bases, which were 
reached without further incident on Friday, June 2." 

At this time of year and in this latitude, it will be day- 
light some time before 3 130. The fleet, therefore, made 
for the scene of the action at this hour — principally, it 
would seem, to pick up the cruisers and destroyers — and 
remained in its proximity until 11 a.m., when the waters 
between the Battle Fleet and the Horn Reef were searched. 
The Commander-in-Chief does not tell us of any search 
made for the enemy at all. But from the fact that he had 
gone northward to look for his own destroyers and cruisers, 
it is evident that, whatever information he had got during 
the night, pointed to the probability of the enemy having 
retreated from the battlefield not south or west, but east 
and northwards. At 8 .-40 on the previous evening he was 
last reported at a point 120 miles from the Horn Reef 
lightship, bearing almost exactly northwest from it. It 
is highly probable that at least ten of the German ships 
had been struck by torpedoes, in addition to the one sunk. 
And though Liltzow was the only ship sunk by gunfire, 
many others had suffered very severely. If the fleet's 
maximum speed before the action was eighteen knots, it 
is highly improbable that after the action it exceeded 
fifteen. At fifteen knots it would have taken the Germans 
eight hours to reach the Horn Reef lightship, had 



THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 339 

they started for that point directly after contact with the 
British main squadrons was lost. Having suffered so 
severely and escaped so miraculously, it was not only 
obvious that Scheer's one idea on June 1 would be to make 
the most of his luck and get safely home, it was also to the 
last degree probable that he would shape a course for 
home which would bring him soonest under the protection 
of whatever defences the German coast could offer. He 
would not, that is to say, attempt to regain Heligoland 
by trying to get round the British Fleet to the south and 
west, and then turn sharply east to Heligoland; he would 
probably try to creep down the Danish and Schleswig 
coasts, where wounded ships might, if necessary, be 
beached, and the islands might supply some form of refuge 
if the situation became desperate. It was on this route 
also that the submarines sent out to cover the retreat 
could be stationed. The best chance of bringing the Ger- 
mans once more to action on the morning of June 1 would 
then appear to have been a sweeping movement towards 
the Horn Reef. The German fleet could not possibly 
have reached this point before half-past four, and prob- 
ably not before half-past six. The fast, light forces and 
the battle-cruisers could have got across to the Schleswig 
coast in two and a half hours and the battleships before 
seven o'clock. 

If the despatch tells us all that was done, one is rather 
driven to the conclusion that the Commander-in-Chief 
assumed that it was not our business, but the Germans' 
business, to resume the action. Why else should he say 
that "the enemy made no sign"? or exult in the fact that 
he knew from his Zeppelin at four o'clock where theBritish 
fleet was if he liked to look for it ? Why should the enemy 
make a sign ? Was it not obvious after the events of the 



340 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

preceding day that he could have but one idea and that 
was safety? Scheer and Von Hipper had certainly done 
enough for honour. They had inflicted heavier losses 
than they had suffered. If they could get home they had 
anything but a discreditable story to tell. If the Com- 
mander-in-Chief really thought it was not his first duty 
to find and bring the enemy to action again; if the risk of 
approaching the Jutland coast seemed too great; if the 
frustration of any ulterior object the enemy might have 
contemplated the day before seemed cheaply purchased 
by the losses the Battle Cruiser Fleet had suffered, so 
long as our main strength at sea was not impaired, then the 
proceedings on June I, as communicated to us, are per- 
fectly intelligible. 

Yet there must have been many among his officers and 
under his command who took a diametrically different 
view. After engaging for the last time at 8 .-40 on the pre- 
vious evening, Sir David Beatty says: "In view of the 
gathering darkness, and of the fact that our strategical 
position was such as to make it appear certain that we should 
locate the enemy at daylight under most favourable circum- 
stances, I did not consider it desirable or proper to close 
the enemy battle fleet during the dark hours. I there- 
fore concluded that I should be carrying out your wishes 
by turning to the course of the fleet, reporting to you that 
I had done so." 

On the events of June 1 Sir David Beatty's despatch 
is silent, but it is obvious that it was not his opinion over- 
night that the morrow should be spent in waiting for the 
enemy to give a sign, but that, on the contrary, it was 
certain that he could and should be found and brought 
to action. 



CHAPTER XXV 

Zeebrugge and Ostend 

In the course of the night April 22-23, an attack was made 
on the two Flemish bases, Ostend and Zeebrugge, with a 
view to blocking the entrances of both by the familiar 
method of sinking old cement-filled ships in the narrow 
fairway. At Ostend the block-ships were grounded 
slightly off their course, and a few days later a second 
attempt was made. The Zeebrugge block-ships got into 
their chosen billets and are safely grounded there. The 
latter port, in spite of official denials, was for many months 
made almost useless to the enemy, and it is probably safe 
to assume that the value of Ostend, where Vindictive 
lies across the fairway, is considerably diminished. 
Material results, therefore, of high importance were 
achieved by this enterprise. 

The operations are worth examining on three quite 
independent grounds. First, what is the strategical 
value of their objective? How, that is to say, would the 
naval activities of Great Britain and her Allies gain by 
Zeebrugge and Ostend being, for some months at least 
out of action? And, conversely, what would the enemy 
lose? Unless we are satisfied that the gain must be 
substantial — apart altogether from the moral effect — we 
should obviously have a difficulty in justifying, not the 
losses in ships incurred, which were trivial and easily 
replaced, but the losses in picked men, which were irrepar- 
able. Secondly, the incident is clearly worth examining 

341 



342 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

for its tactical interest. What were the difficulties the 
vice-admiral in command had to overcome? By what 
weapons, devices, and manoeuvres did he attempt to effect 
his purpose? Third, what was the moral effect? 

STRATEGICAL OBJECT 

There is now only one theatre of the war, and in this 
the issue of civilization or barbarism must be decided by 
military action. The event depends upon the capacity 
of the sea power of the Allies to deliver in France all the 
fighting men and all the war material that Allied ships 
can draw from Asia, from Australia, from South America, 
from the United States, and from Canada, and then deliver 
either directly into France, or first into British ports, 
and then from Britain into France. To beat the German 
Army is ultimately a problem in sea communications. 
The whole of these have to pass through the bottle-neck 
of the Western end of the Atlantic lanes. Into an area 
south of Ireland and north of Ushant, a hundred miles 
square, every ship that comes from the Mediterranean, 
from the Cape, from Buenos Ayres, Rio, the West Indies, 
or the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic seaboard of 
America, must come. 

Secondary only to this are the areas that feed ships 
into it, or into which the ships that pass through it are 
dissipated on their way to the several ports — the Mediter- 
ranean, the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, St. 
George's Channel, the Irish Sea. It is in these, when it is 
driven from the main funnel point of traffic, that the 
submarine must do its work. The defeat of the sub- 
marine, when at large, turns upon three factors: (i) the 
underwater offensive — that is, mine-fields, that will tend 
to keep it within certain areas; (2) the efficiency with 



ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 343 

which ships liable to attack are protected by convoy; 
and (3) the skill and persistence with which submarines, 
once on their hunting grounds, are in turn hunted. To 
maintain a cross-Channel barrage, the enemy surface 
craft must be handicapped in every possible way. The 
second and third factors of anti-submarine war make 
heavy demands on material, on personnel, and on skill, 
judgment, and organization. Here the decisive material 
factor is the number of destroyers available for both 
forms of work. When it comes to a close-quarters fight, 
no craft that has a speed of less than thirty knots, that 
cannot maintain itself in any weather, that does not 
possess a large cruising radius, can be of the first efficiency. 
The larger petrol-driven submarine-chasers and the many 
special craft which are built for various purposes in con- 
nection with the defensive campaign, all have their field 
of utility. But for the final power to rush swiftly on to 
a submarine if it is momentarily seen afloat, and for 
covering the area into which it can submerge itself, while 
the destroyer approaches with depth bombs, the destroyer, 
if only from its superior speed, stands supreme as the 
enemy of the U-boat. From the very earliest days of 
the submarine work it has, then, been axiomatic that 
every measure which will put a larger number of destroyers 
at our disposal should be taken at almost any cost. How 
does the work at Zeebriigge and Ostend help us, both 
in this respect and in a mining policy? 

At these two ports our enemy was able to maintain a 
very considerable destroyer force. Its activit es were 
necessarily mainly confined to work in darkness or in 
thick weather. But in such conditions its efficiency was 
of a very high order. The public only heard of its activi- 
ties when it shelled some point of the coast of Kent, or 



344 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

raided our trawlers or other patrols, and, in all conscience, 
it heard of these activities often enough. Yet we were 
inclined to suppose them unimportant because their 
material results were insignificant. The news that a 
cross-Channel barrage was in course of establishment 
gave them a new value. But their value to the enemy 
should not be measured by the casualties they inflicted 
on our light craft, nor by their occasional excursions 
into the murder of civilians on shore. It lay in the fact 
that the enemy's force permanently withdrew from the 
anti-submarine campaign numerous destroyer leaders 
and destroyers which had to be maintained at Dover to 
cope with it. From Zeebrugge to Emden — the nearest 
German port — is, roughly, three hundred miles by sea, 
and it does not need elaborate argument to show that 
if Zeebrugge and Ostend are permanently out of action 
the problem of dealing with enemy craft in the narrow 
seas is totally and entirely changed. With these gone, 
the East Coast ports became the natural centres from 
which to command the waters between Great Britain and 
Holland. They are fifty miles nearer Emden than is 
Dunkirk. If any German destroyers got west and south 
of Dunkirk, and the news of their presence were cabled 
to an East Coast base, destroyers could get between the 
enemy and his ports without difficulty. Thus, enemy 
surface craft, based upon German ports, would practically 
be denied access to Flemish waters altogether, and this 
by the East Coast and not by the Dover forces. In 
other words, the Dover patrol forces would, by the closing 
of Ostend and Zeebrugge, be set free for the highly 
important work of aiding in the anti-submarine campaign 
— and there is certainly no naval need that is greater. 
The strategical objective, therefore, which Admiral 



ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 34S 

Keyes put before himself in his expedition was, so far 
as he could, to set back the enemy's naval bases by no less 
than three hundred miles. Its importance as setting 
free new forces, both for the direct attack on submarines, 
and for saving the mine-layers from attack, cannot be 
exaggerated, for it was a step — and a great step — forward 
in making sure of the sea communications on which all 
depends. It must be conceded, then that the results 
Admiral Keyes had in view amply justify a very con- 
siderable expenditure both of material and men. Let us 
next ask ourselves what kind of material he chose, and 
how he proposed to use his forces with utmost economy 
and maximum tactical effect. 

SIR ROGER KEYES'S TACTICS 

The purposes of the expedition, as we have seen, were 
to block the exit of the canal at Zeebriigge and the entrance 
of the small, narrow harbour at Ostend with old cruisers 
filled with cement, the removal of which would be an 
operation of a lengthy and tedious kind. Incidentally, 
the plan was to effect the maximum destruction of war 
stores and equipment at Zeebriigge and to sink as 
many as possible of the enemy vessels found in either 
port, and finally, to inflict on the enemy the maximum 
possible losses of personnel. By blocking the canal the 
value of Zeebriigge was reduced from being an equipped 
base to being a mere refuge. As there were two points 
of attack, the expedition naturally resolved itself into 
two distinct, but simultaneous, undertakings. The 
simpler, the less dangerous, the less ambitious, but, as 
the event showed, the more difficult operation of the 
two, was the attempt to block Ostend. The larger, more 
complex, and infinitely more perilous undertaking, but 



346 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

because of its very complications, ultimately easier, was 
the attempt at Zeebrugge. In its broad outlines, the 
scheme was to get the ships as near as possible without 
detection, and then to trust to a final rush to gain the 
desired position. Concealment up to the last moment 
was to be secured by smoke screens. At Ostend the pro- 
blem was simply to run two or three ships into the entrance 
— that is, to get them into position before the enemy's 
artillery made it impossible to manoeuvre. If the Ostend 
attempt failed, it was largely because a sudden change 
in the weather conditions robbed the smoke screens, which 
were to hide the ships, of their value, so that the opera- 
tion of placing the blockships accurately was made almost 
impossible. The operation of blocking such entrances 
has, of course, long been familiar. The exploit of Lieu- 
tenant Hobson in the Spanish-American War, is fresh 
in the memories of all sailors. This failed through the 
steering gear of the blocking-ship being destroyed by 
gunfire at the critical moment. The Japanese attempted 
the same thing on a large scale at Port Arthur but with 
anything but complete success. If the first Ostend effort, 
then, fell short of finality, we have the experience of these 
earlier precedents to explain and account for it. 

I have dealt with Ostend first because, after the pre- 
liminary bombardment, nothing more could have been 
attempted than to force the ships into the harbour 
entrance and sink them there. But at Zeebrugge a far 
more intricate operation was possible. Zeebrugge is not 
a town. It is just the sea exit of the Bruges Canal, with 
its railway connections, round which a few streets of 
houses have clustered. The actual entrance to the canal 
is flanked by two short sea walls, at the end of each of 
which are guide lights. From these lights up the canal 



ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 347 

to the lock gates is about half a mile. A large mole 
protects the sea channel to the canal from being blocked 
by silted sand. The mole is connected to the mainland 
by five hundred yards of pile viaduct. The mole is nearly 
a mile long, built in a curve, a segment amounting to, 
perhaps, one-sixth of a circle, the centre of which would 
be a quarter of a mile east of the canal entrance, while 
its radius would be three-quarters of a mile. It is a large 
and substantial stone structure, on which are railway 
lines and a railway station, and has been turned to capital 
military account by the enemy, who erected on it aircraft 
sheds and military establishments of many kinds. 

The general plan w T as to bombard the place for an hour 
by monitors and, under cover of this fire, for the attacking 
squadron to advance to the harbour mouth. Then, when 
the bombardment ceased, Vindictive was to run alongside 
the mole, disembark her own landing party and those 
from Iris and Daffodil, who were to overpower the enemy 
protecting the guns and stores while the old submarines 
were run into the pile viaduct to cut the mole off from the 
mainland, thus isolating it. Meanwhile, other forces 
were to engage any enemy destroyers or submarines 
that might be in the port. Finally, the block-ships 
were to be pushed right up into the canal mouth and there 
sunk. The success of the latter part of these operations 
turned upon the extent to which the enemy could be made 
to believe that the attack on the mole was the chief 
objective. 

To ensure success against the mole, several very 
ingenious devices were brought into play. The main 
landing parties were placed in Vindictive. This cruiser — 
which displaced about 5,600 tons, and had a broadside 
of six 6-inch guns — was fitted, on the port side, with 



348 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

"brows," or landing gangways, that could be lowered 
on the mole the moment she came alongside. All the 
vessels of the squadron were equipped with fog- or smoke- 
making material, which would veil the force from the 
enemy until he sent up his star shells and, in the artificial 
light, would conceal the character, numbers, and com- 
position of the force as completely as possible. It seems 
that a shift of wind at the critical moment — here, as at 
Ostend — robbed this plan of some of its anticipated effi- 
ciency. At some point of the approach, then, ap- 
parently just before Vindictive rounded and got abreast 
of the lighthouse, the presence of the invaders was de- 
tected, and they were saluted first by salvoes of star shells 
and next by as hot a gunfire as can be conceived. Vindic- 
tive lost no time in replying. Her six 6-inch guns — and 
no doubt her 12-pounders as well — swept the mole as 
long as they could be fired, and, once alongside, the 
"brows" — only two out of eighteen seem to have survived 
the heavy gunfire — were lowered, and officers and men 
"boarded" the mole. 

The earlier accounts stated that this landing was 
effected in spite of the stoutest sort of hand-to-hand fight- 
ing, that the enemy was overcome and driven back, and 
that the landing party then proceeded to the destruction 
of the sheds and stores. ? The plans had included the 
blowing-up of the pile viaduct, which connects the stone 
mole with the mainland — by means of one or two old sub- 
marines charged with explosives, and so virtually con- 
verted into giant torpedoes. These did their work most 
effectively, and had the enemy been in occupation of the 
mole, his force would have been isolated. But, as a fact, 
the mole was not occupied, and the enemy relied 
upon machine- and gun-fire organized from the shore end 



ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 



349 



of the mole for making the landing impossible. In spite 
of a withering fusillade, a considerable landing party of 
marines and bluejackets got ashore, though Colonel 
Elliott and Commander Halahan and great numbers of 
their men were killed in the attempt. Those that got 
on the mole proceeded to destroy, as far as possible, the 
sheds, stores, and guns, and then turned their attention 
to the destroyers moored against its inner side. 

Meantime, the only enemy destroyer that seems to have 
had steam up tried to escape from harbour, and was either 
rammed or torpedoed and instantly sunk. Others, less 
well prepared, were either boarded, after the resistance 
of their crews had been overcome, and, it must be pre- 
sumed, sunk also. Others, again, were attacked by motor 
launches, which preceded and helped clear a way for the 
block-ships. Whether an attempt on the lock gates was 
made or even contemplated, we have not been told; but 
the main purpose of the expedition, the sinking of at 
least two out of the three old Apollos in the right place, 
was achieved with precision. The moment the block- 
ships were in place, the purpose for which the mole was 
occupied was gained, and the order was rightly given for 
an immediate retreat. The work had been done, and 
there was no knowing what new resources the enemy 
could have brought to bear had time been wasted. Many 
of the vessels, including Vindictive, had been holed by 
n-inch shells. But Vindictive s damages were not of a 
serious kind, and the whole force was able to withdraw 
in safety, with the exception of one destroyer and two 
motor launches. The destroyer is known to have been 
sunk by gunfire. The successful withdrawal of the 
expedition is conclusive evidence that the enemy was 
demoralized. 



350 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

For such close-quarters w6rk Admiral Keyes, naturally 
enough, armed his forces as for trench fighting. Vindic- 
tive carried howitzers on her forward and after decks, and 
her boarding parties were liberally armed with grenades 
and flame-throwers as well as with rifles, bayonets, and 
truncheons. Machine guns also seem to have been 
landed, so that hand-to-hand fighting was prepared for 
in the full light of the most recent war experience. The 
plan, it should be noted, was to have included aeroplane 
co-operation to supplement, if not to assist, the work of 
the monitors; but the change in the weather appears to 
have interfered with this part of the programme, and 
may quite easily have made any accurate work by the 
monitors impossible also. 

It is, first of all, patent that the expedition was 
thoroughly thought out in all its details, and therefore 
closely planned. An accurate study of the enemy's 
defences had been made, and suitable means of avoiding 
his attack or overcoming his defences had been elaborately 
worked out. It is equally clear that almost to the moment 
when the attack was made, the weather conditions were 
those which the plan contemplated as necessary to success, 
and that it was only the sudden, unexpected change in the 
wind that threatened the Ostend part of the operations 
with partial failure and made the Zeebriigge operations 
more costly in life than they should otherwise have been. 
When it is remembered that the approaches to Ostend 
and Zeebriigge are commanded by very formidable 
batteries, armed with no less than 120 guns of the largest 
calibre, and that the mole and the sides of the canal 
bristled with quick-firing 12-pounders and larger pieces, 
it will be realized that, to the enemy, any attempt actually 
to bring an unarmoured vessel, with her cement-laden con- 



ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 351 

sorts, right up either to the mole or to the actual mouth 
of the canal must have appeared an undertaking too 
absurdly hare-brained for any one but a lunatic to have 
attempted. It was just because Sir Roger Keyes had 
evaluated the enemy's defences with exactitude and had 
thought out and adopted, first, methods of evading his 
vigilance and, next, manoeuvres that would for the neces- 
sary period make his weapons useless, that it was possible 
not only to make the attempt, but to realize the very 
high degree of success that has apparently been won. 

The essence of the matter, of course, was to take the 
enemy by surprise. At first sight, it may appear a 
curious way of putting him off his guard, that he should 
for an hour be bombarded by monitors and aeroplanes. 
But the Vice-Admiral probably reasoned that this would 
lead, as it often does, to the crews of the big guns taking 
shelter underground until the attack is over. If the 
monitors were placed at their usual great distance from 
ports, and were concealed by smoke or fog screens, the 
enemy gunners would know that it was merely idle to 
attempt to reply to their fire. If nothing was to be 
possible in the way of response until daylight, the gun- 
layers were just as well in their shell-proofs as anywhere. 
Under cover, then, of this long-range bombardment, 
and concealing his squadron by the ingenious fog methods 
invented by the late Commander Brock, Sir Roger Keyes 
made his way within a very short distance of the veiled 
lights at the end of the mole. It was at this point that 
the wind shifted and the presence of the squadron was 
revealed to the enemy. There was a brief interval before 
the big guns could be manned, and it was doubtless owing 
to this that Vindictive got alongside before more than one 
ll-inch shell had struck her. Once under the shelter of 



352 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

the mole, she was safe from the larger pieces, and only 
her upper works could be raked by the smaller natures. 

ATTACK ON THE MOLE 

The policy of attacking the mole and making that 
appear to the enemy the central affair, was a fine piece of 
tactics. The engagement which developed there was 
in. fact, a containing action, which left the execution of 
the main objective to the other forces, and its purpose was 
to prevent the enemy from interfering too much with 
them. Nelson, it will be remembered, cut out a block of 
ships in the centre of the enemy's line at Trafalgar, occupy- 
ing them so that their hands were full, and preventing 
both them and the van from coming to the succour 
of the rear. The main operation was the destruction of 
the rear by Collingwood. Here it was Vindictive, her 
landing-party, that played the Nelson role while the Vice- 
Admiral, in Warwick, himself directed the crucial opera- 
tion, namely, the navigation of the block-ships to their 
billets. The moment they were blown up and sunk the 
purpose of the expedition was fulfilled, and Vindictive' 's 
siren recalled all those from the mole who could get back 
to the ship. The actual fortunes of the fight on the mole 
itself, while of thrilling human interest owing to the 
extraordinary circumstances in which it was undertaken, 
were of quite subsidiary importance. The primary object, 
it must be borne in mind, was not the destruction of the 
mole forts, or of the aeroplane shed, or of whatever 
military equipment was there, or even of killing or captur- 
ing its garrison. These were only important in so far as 
their partial realization was necessary to relieving the 
block-ships from the danger of premature sinking. 

This is a matter of real capital importance and of very 



ZEEBRtGGE AND OSTEND 



353 



great interest, for it is, I think, not difficult to realize that, 
had similar circumstances existed at Ostend — had it been 
possible, that is to say, to occupy the defenders and 
distract their attention on some perfectly irrelevant 
engagement — the requisite time would have been given 
to those in command of the block-ships to make sure of 
getting them into the right position. As things were, 
they were threatened by the fate which made Hobson's 
attempt at Santiago a failure. With the whole gun- 
power of Ostend concentrated upon the blocking-ships, 
there was not a minute to be wasted. But with the 
enemy's fire drawn there would have been the leisure 
which alone could make precision possible. 

MORAL EFFECT 

The attack on Zeebriigge and the two successive attacks 
on Ostend, carefully planned and boldly and resolutely 
carried out, achieved a very high measure of success. It 
was natural enough, on the first receipt of the news, that 
we should all have been carried away by our wonder and 
admiration at the astonishing heroism that made it 
possible to carry through so intricate a series of opera- 
tions, when every soul engaged was seemingly aware of 
the desperate character of the enterprise, when no one 
could have expected to return alive, when the enemy's 
means seemed ample, not only for the killing of everyone 
engaged, but for the immediate frustration of every object 
that they had in view, and so made most of the astounding 
gallantry and daring of all concerned. For over four 
years now we have had a constant recurrence of such feats 
of courage, and repetition does not lessen their power to 
intoxicate us with an overwhelming admiration of those 
who are the heroes of these great adventures. But we 



354 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

should be misconceiving the significance of these events 
if we were to measure their importance either by the 
ordered daring of those engaged, or by their successful 
execution, or by their immediate military results, great 
and far-reaching as these were. 

The thing was more important as affording conclusive 
evidence that the British Navy, as inspired and directed 
from headquarters, had now abandoned the purely 
defensive role assigned to it by ten years of pre-war, and 
three and a half years of war, administration. It meant 
that the Fleet had escaped from those counsels of timor- 
ous — because unimaginative and ignorant — caution, which 
had checked its ardour and limited its activities since 
August, 1914. The effect may be incalculable. The 
doctrine that every operation which involved the risk of 
losing men or ships must necessarily be too hazardous 
to undertake, was thus shown to be no longer the loadstone 
of Whitehall's policy. The Navy was at last set free to 
act on an older and a better tradition. 

It is indeed on this tradition that on almost every 
occasion the Navy has, in fact, acted when it got a chance. 
When Swift and Broke tackled three times their number 
of enemy last year, and Botha and Morris six times their 
number this year, the gallant captains of these gallant 
vessels did not wait to ask if the position of their ships 
was "critical" or otherwise; but, with an insight into the 
true defensive value of attack — which, seemingly, it is 
the privilege only of the most valorous to possess — 
went straight for their enemies, fought overwhelming 
odds at close quarters, and came out as victorious as 
a rightly reasoned calculation would have shown to be 
probable. 

Similarly, on May 31, 1916, Sir David Beatty, when 



ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 355 

his force of battle-cruisers, by the loss of Indefatigable 
and Queen Mary, had been reduced below that of the 
enemy, persisted in his attack upon Von Hipper and, by 
demoralizing the enemy's fire, provided most effectively 
for the safety of his own ships. Losses did not make him 
retreat then, nor, when Scheer came upon the scene with 
the whole High Seas Fleet, did he withdraw from the 
action — his speed would have made this easy — though 
the odds were heavy against him. He kept, on the 
contrary, the whole German Fleet in play, drawing 
them dexterously to the north, where contact with the 
Grand Fleet would be inevitable. And, when the contact 
was made, his last effort to break up the German line was 
to close from the 14,000 yards, a range he had prudently 
maintained during the previous two hours, to 8,000, 
where his guns would be more certainly effective, realizing 
perfectly that no loss of ships in his own squadron would 
signify, if only the entire destruction of the German Fleet 
were made possible by such a sacrifice. It would not be 
difficult to give scores of incidents in which individual 
admirals and captains have shown the old spirit under 
new conditions. 

But, save only for the crazy attack on the Dardanelles 
forts — and this is hardly a precedent we should rejoice 
to see followed — we have looked in vain for any sign of 
naval initiative from Whitehall. The explanation lies 
in the fact that we had no staff for planning operations, 
nor the right men in power for judging whether any pro- 
posed undertaking was based on a right calculation of 
the value of the available means of offence and defence. 
The events, therefore of the night of the 22nd and the 
early hours of the 23 rd were of quite extraordinary 
importance, for they marked an undertaking needing 



356 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

• 

long and elaborate preparation, and one which could not 
have been brought to a successful issue had it not enjoyed 
from its first inception the enthusiastic support of the 
Admiralty. But this is not all. Not only was this an 
Admiralty-supported undertaking, it was one that, 
unlike the Gallipoli adventure, was carried through on 
right staff principles. There was a definite, well-thought- 
out plan — careful preparation for every step in the right 
selection of men and means for its execution. 

I think it is right to put this forward as the most 
important aspect of a significant, stirring, and successful 
enterprise. It is the most important because the news 
meant so very much more than that Zeebriigge was blocked, 
that Ostend was crippled, and that an expedition — at 
first sight perilous beyond conception — had been carried 
through with losses altogether disproportionate, either 
to its dangers or to the results achieved. The news 
meant that a new direction either had been, or certainly 
can, and therefore must, now be given to our naval 
policy. *In the spring of 1917 sceptics were asking if the 
Army could win the war before the Navy lost it. Why, 
they said, if our land forces can force a way through what 
we were told were impregnable fortifications, should the 
greatest sea force in the world be impotent against an 
enemy who slinks behind his forts with his surface craft, 
while devastating our sea communications with his sub- 
marines? Is naval ingenuity, they asked, so crippled 
that we can neither protect our trade against the sub- 
marine at sea, nor block the enemy's ports so that the 
submarine can never get to sea ?# The critics replied that 
all was well with the Navy, but that all was sadly wrong 
with its official chiefs. The reorganization of the Admi- 
ralty was immediately followed by the adoption of the 



ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 3S7 

convoy principle — and submarine losses were reduced 
to half. This long-advocated measure, the recently 
inaugurated barrage at Dover, and now the events of the 
morning of April 23, have justified the critics and the 
changes in method and men which they urged. Zee- 
brugge had been in the enemy's hands since September, 
1914, and it took us three and a half years, not to discover 
a man capable of attacking it, but in developing an 
Admiralty capable of picking the man and giving him the 
right support before the attack could be made. If a 
similar spirit had actuated a properly constituted Admi- 
ralty all these years, what might not the Navy have 
accomplished ? 

In the previous year the emancipation of the Navy had 
gone forward apace. And not the least significant of the 
stages in the process were first the appointment of Admi- 
ral Sir Roger Keyes to be head of the Planning Division 
at the Admiralty, next his removal from the Admiralty 
to Dover, next the inauguration of the Channel barrage, 
and finally his surprising and masterly stroke at the 
Flemish ports. The enumeration of these stages is 
worth making, for they mark the genesis of the plan we 
have seen achieved. It was, if I am correctly informed, 
quite understood when Admiral Keyes went to Dover 
that his mission was temporary. If he was sent to do the 
things which he has done, and now that he has done them 
is taken back to Whitehall, then it might seem as if we 
might look forward to an aggressive policy at sea more 
worthy of the superb force which we possess, and more 
consonant with its glorious heritage than anything which 
we have witnessed in the past. And if Sir Roger cannot 
be spared from his new command, so auspiciously in- 
augurated, then we must trust that some other of equal 



358 THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE 

brains and spirit has already taken or will take his place. 
Zeebrugge and Ostend, then, will figure in naval history, 
not only as the names of achievements unique and 
splendid in themselves, but more famous as the harbingers 
of still greater things to come. 



END 



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